Pride, Prejudice & Jimmy Choos
by SunRei
Summary: She was the girl America loved to hate; and the girl he hated to love. After a rash of behavioral incidents, pop princess Lola Dakota finds herself exiled in a backwards Kansas town. Looks can be deceiving. Elseworld fic.
1. Chapter 1

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**Pride, Prejudice & Jimmy Choos**  
_a.k.a. The Cliiiiiiimb_

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_"Fans of famed pop star Lola Dakota were left crushed and drenched this morning when the singer failed to appear as planned for ABC affiliate Good Morning America's concert in the park series…"_

The reporter's words were abruptly cut short as the television set was shut off. A statuesque man with thinning gray hair dropped the remote control onto the marble desk top with disgust. Tugging on the jacket of his five-thousand dollar suit, he addressed the other person in the room.

"I thought I paid you to keep a handle on this kind of stuff," he grumbled, shifting through the stack of magazines whose cover headlines catalogued the downfall of the singing sensation.

_  
_--_Paps target LoDa and gossip maven Jaminez Olsen partying together?_--  
_  
_--_Dakota career on its way South?_--  
_  
_--_Lola fans left wanting more_--  
_  
_--_Pop princess gone wild!_--

The woman sitting in one of the high-backed chairs that was positioned in front of the desk swiveled her chair around to face him. The striking contrast between her auburn hair and her light green eyes enhanced the flash of annoyance that covered her face.

"Sure, you pay me to cover the sharks and to make sure that the Dakota franchise keeps its place as the reigning queen of the pop scene, but as long as your client takes her spiral public, there is absolutely nothing I can do to spin this. I'm not here to babysit. Maybe if she hadn't gotten rid of her assistant, she'd be able to make it to her stage dates."

The weary record executive sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I thought this assistant had tougher skin than the last few."

"She almost ran her down with her car in the middle of Rodeo Drive. Working with Lola requires more than tough skin, sir."

"Well, the trades are known to exaggerate in order to sling their wares."

"Dr. Phil called," she stated in answer to his comment.

"Damn. It's gotten that bad?"

She nodded.

"I have half a mind to let that quack have a go at her." He paused and sighed. "I guess I probably shouldn't ask if you know where she is right now," he started, resigning to shaking his head when the woman responded with a pointed look.

"We're lucky if _she_ knows where she is right now."

The sound of someone fumbling with the door handle drew their attention.

"Speak of the devil and she shall appear," the woman continued in amusement.

The appearance of a tall blonde stumbling into the room spurned the man to stand up. "Lola," he ground out. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Lola frowned and lifted a hand to her head as if in pain. With one eye open, she glanced around the room. "This is my suite," she answered, then hesitated, "isn't it?" She grinned widely at the other woman. "Hey, Mercy! What are you doing here?"

"Ms. Mercer is here to clean up your mess," the man answered, eliciting stunned looks from both women.

"Mr. Lane, I thought we'd established that there's not much to be done…"

"My mess? What mess?"

"The concert you missed," he answered. "Good Morning America. Ring any bells?"

Lola's face scrunched. "The concert's tonight."

"No, it was at six o'clock this morning—hence the whole 'Good Morning' part."

"Well that's insane," Lola said laughing and wobbling her way toward the bedroom section of the large hotel suite. "Nobody wants to go to a concert at six in the morning." She turned and saw the expressions on the faces of her visitors. "Relax, we'll reschedule."

"It's not that simple, young lady."

"Sam, chill," she said lifting a hand to ward him off. "I'm Lola. Everybody loves Lola. Remember the TV show? This goose is golden," she said, making an elaborate flourish with her hands and shooting him a self-assured smile. Her expression sobered as her balance suddenly shifted, causing her to reach out and brace against the wall. "Whoa."

Sam glared at her silently for a minute before appearing to come to a decision. "Tess, as of right now, Lola's on hiatus," he declared before turning and stalking toward the door.

Tess hurried after him. "For how long?" she asked near panic.

"I don't know yet."

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

Sam jerked the door open and turned to face her. "Your job," he stated firmly. "Spin it." He glanced over to where Lola was attempting to take off her boots while holding onto the wall. "I'll worry about getting _her_ fixed."

Tess released a long breath when the door closed behind her boss. Her mind was already sorting through a number of tasks that would have to be done in preparation for a sudden break in Lola's non-stop career.

She looked up when the sound of a thud and a giggle announced Lola's introduction to the floor. Sighing heavily, she made her way across the room to help the younger woman get up.

"He can be so dramatic sometimes, don't you think, Mercy?'

Tess turned her head so her nose was out of foul breath range as she escorted her charge to the bed. "So… where were you last night?" she asked, needing the information before the tabloids got a hold of it.

"Ohmigod, Merce, you _so_ should have been there. Stella Cruz throws the best parties." She suddenly looked confused. "Why weren't you there?"

"Hmm, I don't know. Maybe because you had concert this morning… at the crack of dawn."

"Huh." Lola shrugged and patted her chest as a hiccup caught her off guard. "Anyway, the party like _just_ ended twenty minutes ago. Can you believe that? Oh! Himee was there. He asked about you," she teased.

Tess' face clouded at the mention of the name—the nickname of the notorious celebrity gossip mogul who ran a website in his namesake: . She could already guess what the latest blog report was going to do to make her job harder. No longer willing to placate the younger woman, she not-so-gently pushed Lola onto the bed.

"How long are you going to keep pulling this crap?" she demanded, bracing her hands on her hips.

"Don't you start getting all grey-suitey on me too. It's such a buzz kill. I'm just having fun. You know, 'what Lola wants, Lola gets,'" she sang, swaying haphazardly to her tune.

Tess reached out and pulled the blonde wig from her head. "But you're not really Lola, are you, Lois?"

The newly uncovered Lois Lane reached up and ran a hand through her long brown locks, freeing them from the pins that held them hidden under her wig. "I've got five words for you, Mercy," she said, holding up three fingers. "Buzz. Kill."

Laughing at her own joke, Lois flopped backwards onto the bed and rolled until her head was on a pillow.

Shaking her head in disgust, Tess turned to leave.

"Wait, don't leave yet!" Lois called. "It's too bright in here—can you get the blinds?"

The only sound in response was of a closing door.

"Tess? Teeeeessssss….Come on, Tess, have mercy on me!" Lois erupted into uncontrollable laughter and reached to pull the other pillow over her head. It wasn't long before the giggles morphed into snores.

~\s/~

"You know what, Daddy? I'm really starting to dig this idea," Lois said as the plane engines died down. "Lola Dakota checks into Hawaiian rehab facility for bouts of exhaustion," she quoted, pulling her sunglasses over her eyes in preparation for outside light. Still fighting a slight headache, she had requested the shades pulled on her private plane. Smiling at her dad she continued, "Which, to you and me, translates to Lois Lane at her favorite Maui spa."

"Um-hmm," Sam grunted in agreement.

"It'll be great, you'll see," she said, brushing off his pessimism and darting toward the opening door. "A-lo-…" Her words trailed off as she took in her not-so-tropical surroundings, "…ha?"

The arms that she had raised in a victory chant slowly lowered to her side. "There are no hula people out here. I'm supposed to get flowers." She turned to face the man who was now standing behind her. "Daddy, where did Hawaii go?"

He pushed her forward and indicated that she should walk down the stairs. "We're not in Hawaii," he said, stating the obvious. "We're in Kansas."

"Kansas?" Lois repeated, dazedly responding to her father's urgings to move forward. "I can't get Lei'd in Kansas!"

_tbc..._


	2. Chapter 2

**[-2-]**

Lois was still reeling as the taxi rolled up the gravel driveway toward a yellow farmhouse. It wasn't just her averted vacation plans that had her sitting there dazed and confused; her father had also informed her that she was being put on fake probation. He'd secured her a spot at some "dude ranch" where she was going to be graded on her work ethic and progress. She hadn't even had enough wherewithal to be able to form her natural argument to being punished ("But I'm Lola!") before her dad-slash-manager had deposited her bags into the trunk of a beat-up taxi and taken off on *her* plane.

"Here you go, ma'am. Five-thirty-eight, Hickory Lane."

Lois blinked out of her thoughts and peered through the window. "And where is *here*, exactly?"

"Kent Farm," the driver answered cheerfully, shutting down the engine and climbing out of the cab.

Lois reached for the handle on the door before pausing, her eye catching the figure of a young man on the wrap-around porch of the house. She ran her tongue along her teeth while she studied him, suddenly forgetting that she was supposed to be angry.

"Well, hellloo," she muttered, taking in the way his jeans hugged muscular thighs. Her gaze traveled upward, cataloging the fitted tee-shirt that revealed the immense biceps that bulged from his crossed arms. Finally reaching the chiseled jaw and tousled-dark hair, she was taken aback by the scowl and the hard glint in the intense blue eyes that were staring back at her.

She returned his hard look with a questioning one, and after a few seconds of dueling glares, he uncrossed his arms and clomped down the steps. When Lois finally got out of the backseat, he was at the back of the taxi, chatting with the driver as he retrieved her luggage.

"That's Prada!" she exclaimed as he unceremoniously dropped her largest bag onto the ground. He gave her a blank look so she gestured at the bag with an annoyed look.

Shrugging, he turned back and effortlessly lifted her three other bags from the space. "Thanks, Louie," he said, addressing the driver, "I got it from here."

Gasping at his irreverence, Lois bent down and struggled to lift the bag from the ground.

"Allright, Clark. Tell your mom I said hello." The driver then nodded to Lois as he returned to the front seat. "Miss. Enjoy your stay."

Lois was so busy glaring at Clark for the mistreatment of her property and trying to stay upright from the weight of her bag that she didn't think to respond until the vehicle was already backing away. "Oh, right, yeah," she said to the departing car. Turning she saw that her guide was walking away unannounced.

"Hey! It's Clark right?" she called, juggling her suitcase and following behind him. When he didn't respond, she tried again. "I'm Lois. Lois Lane."

"I know."

She followed him to a small white house that was tucked behind the main farmhouse. He dropped her bags onto the porch and pushed open the front door. "This is where you'll be staying."

Lois swallowed the scream of protest ("Prada!") that was about to erupt at seeing her bags tossed and instead focused on the house. Peering through the open door, she suddenly realized just how far away from Hawaii she was. "Um, actually, there's been a mistake…"

"Tell me about it," Clark grumbled in reply, stepping off of the porch and looking up at her from the ground. "Listen, this is my mom's deal. She asked me to show you in, so here you go."

Lois laughed. "If you really think I'm going to stay here, you've got it sideways."

Clark narrowed his eyes at the house. "Is there something wrong with the accommodations?"

She snickered. "Do you know who I am?"

"I'm starting to wish that I didn't. Look, my mom will be here soon. You can take it up with her," he said, turning and walking away.

"You can't talk to me like that! I'm Lo…" She caught herself before finishing her statement. She had momentarily forgotten that this was one of those times when she *wasn't* Lola Dakota.

"Crap," she muttered to herself. "I'm Lois Lane."

~\s/~

"I don't see why you have to feed it," Clark said wryly as he stole a chocolate chip cookie from the plate his mother was about to set on a waiting tray.

The petite red-headed dynamo swatted his hand away. "Clark," she admonished with a stern frown. "I know you aren't referring to our company as an 'it'."

"You haven't met *her* yet," Clark countered. "You'll be seeing things my way when you do." He pulled out one of the stools at the kitchen island and sat down, watching as his mom prepared a thermos of iced tea. "She can't stand being in this shithole."

Martha set the container she was holding down on the counter with a heavy thud and turned to face him. "Clark Jerome Kent," she said through clenched teeth, "I don't care how long you've been standing upright to piddle, you will not use that language in my house."

Clark bit back a grin and lifted his hands in apology, shrugging off his mother's pique. "Not my words." He gestured with his head in the direction of the cottage. "She's out there arguing with her father about getting out of here."

Martha's eyes narrowed to a glare.

Clark sighed. "Okay, okay. I won't listen in." Then, as her look hardened, he added, "Ever. In my life… Again."

"You shouldn't have been listening in the first place," she said firmly, walking over and smacking him gently on the back of the head. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing gotten into me. I just think that if she doesn't want to be here, and we don't want her here, then she shouldn't be here."

Martha frowned at him and returned to packing the tray. "I don't think that it's 'we' who don't want her here."

"Fine. You're right. I don't want her here. I don't want anyone here. It's dangerous. She has a horrible attitude, she's spoiled, and…" His jaw tightened. "Mom, we can't need money that bad. We don't need hired hands and you don't need to consider downsizing. I can take care of all the chores…"

Martha moved and stood across from him at the island. "Clark, this farm was your father's dream and it's my dream, but that doesn't mean it has to be yours.'

"I don't mind…"

"*I* mind," she interrupted, reaching out and placing a hand over his. "One day you'll get tired of hiding away on the farm and want to pursue other things. When you do, I'll be able to manage, okay?" She smiled and patted his hand. "And this is not just about money. Sam and his wife were once good friends of ours." She retreated to the counter where she picked up the tray.

She winked at Clark as she backed through the screen door and stepped onto the porch. "On the other hand, fifteen thousand dollars for taking a spoiled brat through a few weeks worth of chores ain't that bad."

After crossing the short distance between the houses, Martha paused at the door to the one room cottage as she heard an enraged scream followed by a thud. When no other sounds were heard for the next few seconds, she shifted the tray in her arms and knocked.

"Yeah? What do you want?"

Taken aback at the rude demand coming from the other side of the door, Martha wasn't quite sure how to respond. "Um, dinner…" she managed.

The door flung open to reveal a tall—and quite pretty—brunette. "Oh, finally," she gushed, "I'm starved. You can set it over there," she said, making a sweeping gesture toward the little coffee table that sat inside the tiny living room section.

Still reeling from her first encounter with her new guest, Martha did not immediately rebuff the young woman's dismissive attitude. She gave Lois a questioning look in response to the discarded cell phone she stepped over as she entered the room.

"Oh, right," Lois said, bending down to retrieve the item. "Slight disagreement with my parental unit."

"So you threw the phone and yelled at the door?" Martha asked, setting the tray down on the table.

Lois looked momentarily sheepish. "Sorry about the scream, I thought you might have been the farm hand from earlier."

"The farm hand…?" Martha repeated in confusion. "Oh, you mean my son, Clark."

"Clark, yes," she repeated, sitting down and taking the cover plate off of the food. "Tall, dark hair, angry eyes, metal rod stuck up his a…"

"Excuse me?" Martha interrupted with raised brows.

"Oh, you said son. Right." Lois took a bite of fried chicken and barely swallowed before sighing in rapture. "This is great. This is *amazing*." She waved the disfigured chicken wing in the air. "I mean, usually I'm all about counting carbs—thanks to Michel, my trainer—but for something this good, I have to suck up the extra workout and slap the cook."

Martha blinked; still trying to wrap her head around the pieces of personality she was being shown. "*I'm* the cook…"

Lois peered up at her disapproving expression and grimaced. "Yeah. You don't really look like you want to be slapped."

"That's because I *don't* want to be slapped," Martha responded. "I also don't appreciate the home my husband built for his mother being called a shithole."

Martha raised an eyebrow as Lois's eyes widened and began frantically glancing around the room. "No, there are no cameras or bugs in here," Martha said, forcing herself not to smile at Lois's reaction. "The first thing you need to understand is that I'm a mother, and mothers know everything. Okay?"

Lois swallowed the mouthful of chicken she had been speaking around and nodded mutely.

"Good. The second thing is that this farm is my home. I want you to feel welcome while you are here, but that begins with you respecting your environment." She waited for Lois to nod again before continuing. "Now, I don't know what you did, but your father asked me to let you stay here and work with us for the next few weeks."

Lois's eyebrows hitched upwards at that but she stayed quiet. Martha wasn't sure which part of the last statement had surprised her, the fact that she was supposed to work or the fact that her stay was going to be longer than a few days, but she chose to address the former. "You *will* work. There are no maids or valets here and there will be no special treatment. I brought your dinner out here tonight, but in the future, meals are served in the big house. If you want to eat, you'll be there on time and with your hands washed. Morning chores start at dawn. Don't be late."

She finally smiled as Lois blinked up at her. "I'm Martha Kent, by the way. It's nice to have you here." She turned to leave, but stopped when Lois shakily called to her.

"Uh, Mrs. Kent? Exactly what time is dawn? I didn't see an alarm clock…"

Martha smirked. "You won't need one. Trust me. Just bring that tray over when you're done."

She gently pulled the front door closed as she left. "So I guess that means there's no turndown service…" she heard Lois remark as she walked past the open side window on her way back to the main house. The fact that the girl was still quite spirited after the mini-lecture made her chuckle. It meant two things: one, Lois was smart enough to stretch her feathers once the authority figure was gone, and two, she had her work cut out for her if she was going to have any impact on that attitude.

She was still smiling to herself when she returned to the kitchen to find Clark waiting for her.

"See? See? I told you," he said, immediately leaping from his chair when she walked through the door. "Well?"

Martha frowned at his sudden restlessness. "She certainly is…"

"Rude, right? Stuck up? Obnoxious?"

"I was going to say gorgeous," Martha replied, starting to pack up the leftovers and turning her back to him so he wouldn't see her smile.

"Mom! How can you even say that?" he asked, betrayed.

"I can say that because I have eyes." She turned and tilted her head in acknowledgment. "I'm teasing, Clark. I know that she's a little rough around the edges, but that's not enough to make me send her packing."

Clark let out a long breath. "Mom, I don't like this. Home is usually the only place where I can be myself," he said tightly. "I can't do that with a stranger here."

Martha nodded solemnly. "I know, but Honey, you can't continue living in a zone just because it shields you from the things that are uncomfortable. When I see the way you've closed yourself off from everything since your father… it makes me sad. You're not living life to the fullest."

"He wanted us to be safe. If people knew what I could do…" He just shook his head instead of completing the thought.

"Yes," Martha agreed firmly, "of course did, but that didn't mean he wanted you to ignore your heart."

"Mom, I don't want to get into this again right now," he countered wearily. "I'm just not ready."

She nodded and let the familiar lecture drop for the time being. "Okay, here's what we'll do. I'll let you develop the plan for Lois. You can decide which of your chores she takes on, that way you can make sure she carries her weight."

He frowned. "That's not exactly keeping her out of my space," he countered.

Martha shrugged. They both knew that it was almost the exact opposite… and that it wasn't really a request.

Setting his jaw, Clark crossed his arms over his chest and walked out of the room, leaving his mother to marvel at the fact that she had just witnessed her second adult temper tantrum of the day.

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	3. Chapter 3

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**Pride, Prejudice & Jimmy Choos**

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[-3-]

"Erruk-a Reerruh Ruuuuh!"

Squeezing her eyes tight, Lois frowned. "Aww hells no!" she groaned. "It's not even time yet!"

Two days had passed since she'd arrived at the farm and Martha's warning about not needing an alarm clock had been proven correct the very next morning. It seemed that the farm had its own resident bell tower—in the form of a male chicken who seemed to enjoy roosting on the windowsill across the room from the bed.

"Erruk-a Reerruh Ruuuuh!"

"Shut. Up!" she answered, using one hand to press a pillow closer to her head and the other to feel around the floor near the bed for a weapon. She was exhausted and she could have sworn that she had *just* gone to bed. If she had been willing to release her tenuous hold on the possibility of going back to sleep, she would have pulled out her phone to check the time. She lifted the object her searching hand had landed on and prepared for launch.

"Erruk-a Ree… Gaaaaawk!"

Smiling to herself, Lois was just beginning to relax when a sudden thought caused her to sit straight up. "My baby!"

Jumping out of bed in a rush, she promptly fell to the floor because her legs were still tangled in the sheets. Scrambling to her feet, she yelped as her progress was impeded by the introduction of her shin to the small living room table. She hopped to the side, stumbling over the suitcases and clothes she had strewn all over the place and made it to the window just in time to see her feathered nemesis trotting off with one of her 700 dollar handmade satin buckle pumps.

"Rosco!" she yelled, tumbling through the obstacle course once again to get to the door. When she made it to the porch, she watched in defeat as the rooster ducked into the chicken coop. Getting closer to being awake, she decided to relieve herself before taking on the poultry version of Moulin Rouge.

Brushing her unruly bangs away from her eyes, she made her way into the tiny bathroom only to be jolted fully awake by the feel of cold water where it wasn't expected.

"You have *got* to be kidding me!"

Slowly lifting herself out of the toilet bowl, she sighed. It was going to be one of those days.

~\s/~

Martha turned as the screen door separating the kitchen from the porch snapped shut. "Lois?" She was surprised to see the young woman for a couple of reasons. The first was because it was early—in the previous few days that she had been there, Lois had never been a happy riser. The other reason for Martha's surprise was Lois's appearance. She was still wearing pajamas, her hair was all over the place, and there were feathers peeking out from every possible location.

Smiling broadly, Lois lifted her hands. "I've got eggs!"

Martha's eyebrows lifted as Lois handed her the aforementioned items. Three of them to be exact. "Um… Thank you?"

Nodding proudly, Lois turned toward the table where Clark was sitting and looking at her oddly.

"I thought you were deathly afraid of chickens," he commented.

Lois arched an eyebrow. "You never know what you're capable until it comes down to saving Jimmy Choo."

Clark frowned. "I don't get it."

Smirking, Lois reached out and fondly rubbed the collar of his flannel shirt. "I know you don't." She let her eyes travel down and up again. "But I can fix that for you."

Realizing what she was doing, Clark shifted out of her grasp. Flicking a glance over Lois's shoulder, he narrowed his eyes when he saw that his mom wasn't looking. "Mom asked me to take a look at your toilet this morning. Everything working all right?" he asked smugly.

Lois's expression immediately sobered. She was working up a response when Martha arrived at the table with two heaping plates.

Clark smiled at her sudden speechlessness.

"I'll take that as a yes."

~\s/~

An hour later, Lois had changed clothes and was angrily following Clark into the barn. "What was the toilet thing all about?" she demanded, fisting her hands against her hips.

Clark grimaced and rubbed his forehead with his forearm.

"Well?" she asked when he didn't answer quickly enough to satisfy her.

He sighed. "You were flirting with me."

Lois scoffed. "Most boys like it when a pretty girl takes an interest," she said demurely.

"You were flirting with me so I would do your chores," he countered.

Lois tilted her head thoughtfully as she contemplated telling him that he was wrong. "Oookay," she finally assented, shrugging. "And…?"

"And I did your chores so you'd stay out of my hair."

Lois bristled at the insinuation that her flirting was ineffective. "Fine. I can live with that." Really, she couldn't, but she would concede that for now. "That's how it worked yesterday and the day before that. What's different today?"

"Today you get to do your own chores."

Horrified at the thought, Lois quickened her pace so that she could jump in front of him. "Wait, what? Why?"

"Because today you had an epiphany and so did I."

"A what? I did not!"

Clark chuckled. "Yes you did. It got you eggs."

Lois's opened her mouth and then closed it—then opened it again, having decided on a new tactic. "Oh, I get it. You want me near you." She moved closer and smiled up at him. "It's okay. You can admit that you're tired of fighting it."

Clark looked at her for a moment. Then, without speaking he lifted the metal pail he'd been holding and pushed it into her hands.

Lois looked down at the pail in confusion, then called after him as he walked away. "What is this for?"

"Milk," he answered over his shoulder. "Let's go."

Lois laughed sarcastically. "Oh, no no no," she said, following him toward the sound of irate mooing. "Do you see what I'm wearing?"

Clark glanced at her as he grabbed the milking stool off of the side table. "Clothes?"

Sighing, Lois shook her head. "The jeans, Kent. These are Hudson jeans."

Clark looked at her flatly. "Like the bay?"

"Custom couture," she continued, not even bothering to address his question. "Uniquely embellished by Ni-jean St. John…" She paused, waiting a beat for effect, "…The artist. You don't," she frowned toward the small line of cows waiting to be relieved, "*milk* in these jeans."

Clark set the stool down next to the nearest Holstein. "So go change."

"These are the only jeans I have," she retorted.

Shrugging, Clark walked over and took her by the shoulders, leading her to the cow and pushing her down onto the stool. "Then they look like cow milking jeans to me."

~\s/~

After a full day-and-a-half of farm chores, Lois was way past the novelty of the whole thing. Her exhaustion the previous mornings had been from staying up late texting friends and scouring the internet on a tiny phone screen. Her exhaustion that morning was from carting full pails of milk across what felt like acres of pathway.

The trip to Kansas wasn't Hawaii but she had been starting to deal. She had been fed incredible food and had been spending her days lounging. All in all, there was no ocean view, but it had turned out to be a rustic version of a day spa. At least, that had been the case when she didn't have to do chores.

Now she was feverishly trying to think of an escape plan.

"Heads up."

Lois turned at the sound of the voice, flinching as a pitchfork landed on the ground next to her. "You could have killed me!"

"You were supposed to catch that," Clark informed her as he walked by.

"Catch it?" Lois asked incredulously, leaning down to pick it up by its wooden handle. "Ow! I got a splinter!"

Clark sighed and turned around. "Where are your gloves?"

"They were dirty so I put them in the laundry bin."

He shook his head. "They're gloves. They're *supposed* to be dirty." He pulled his pair off and handed them to her. "Here." When she scrunched her nose at them instead of taking them, he added, "You're going to want them. We're making fertilizer."

"We're making *what*?!"

"Fer-ti-lizer. You *do* know what that is, right?"

Lois snatched the gloves away from him. "Oh, I know what it is! I also know where the main ingredient comes from!"

Clark smiled sarcastically. "Great! That saves me from an awkward explanation."

Whimpering in protest, she trailed behind him as far as the door to the stables. "Clark, listen." She fanned her face with her hand and pulled at the neckline of her shirt. "We've been working nonstop for two days…"

"*I've* been working nonstop for longer than that," he inserted, looking at her from over the wall of an empty stall.

"My point exactly," she agreed. "All this hard work—we should take a break. Take a day to relax. Don't you ever just want to let your hair down a little?"

Clark paused in his stall mucking actions long enough to glare at her.

"Proverbial hair," she amended. Sighing, she shrugged out of the faded button-down shirt she had gotten from Martha when the older woman had judged her clothing to be unfit. She tied the sleeves of the shirt around her waist and stretched her arms above her head, emphasizing the curves that were now observable with the remaining tank top. "Come on. There has to be *something* you like to do to detox."

She positioned herself against the doorframe. "I like to go riding," she said in a sultry voice. She internally pouted when he didn't seem to notice. "You know, the Hiltons have horses. Paris and I used to share a box at the Derby." She waited for a response. "Oh, here's something I bet you didn't know. Ashton is afraid of horses," she said with a chuckle. "He says he's too tall to ride, but Demi told me that he won't go near anything bigger than he is. That must be Tyra's deal, too. You know, she has a thing with giraffes."

Lois tilted her head and studied Clark's apparent indifference. She had been dropping story after story of big A-list names around him every chance she got but he never seemed to care. It was just another example of how fish-out-of-water she was. It was like the plot to movie. She mentally tucked the thought away to email the idea to Mercy that night.

"You like music, right?" she asked, fully expecting to not get an answer. "Well, you would love going to Coachella. I don't miss it. There's nothing more surreal than hanging out with the Boss, the Artist, and The Fray all at one time." She turned her head so she wouldn't appear to be watching his reaction to her next statement even though she totally was. "Lola Dakota is performing this year."

When his face morphed into one of disgust at the mention, she crossed her arms angrily. That was not quite the reaction she had expected… "You've got a problem with Lola?" she asked, completely abandoning the pretense that she wasn't watching for his response.

Clark didn't even stop mucking to answer her. "No. I'm just not into music that is sung while the so-called-artist prances around the stage in circus get-up."

Lois frowned. "Haven't you ever heard of thematic costumery?"

Clark snorted. "I'm pretty sure costumery isn't a word, but I don't have to have heard about it to know that I don't like the music."

"What's wrong with the music?"

"Why do you care what I think about that no-talent publicity pawn?"

Lois's back straightened indignantly. "Because *I* am…" she started. Then catching herself, she cleared her throat and continued, "…a friend of hers. One of her best friends, in fact, and I happen to like her music." She frowned, not entirely satisfied with the way the exchange was going.

"A friend of hers," Clark repeated flatly. "Of course you are." Finally, he sighed and looked up at her. "Hey, do you think you can talk while you work, or is that one of those walk and chew gum type things for you?"

She was about to sarcastically agree with the latter when the sound of a large engine pulled her attention to the main drive. With a triumphant expression, she turned back to Clark. "Oh look! Hay delivery. I guess the fertilizer will have to wait!"

Clark tossed his shovel down on the ground and inhaled heavily, wiping his hands on his jeans as he followed her out of the barn. His eyebrows rose at seeing her greet the young man driving the truck. By the time he reached them, Lois had the sandy-haired boy practically standing at attention.

"Johnnie Walker," she gushed. "I love that name. You're parents must have a great sense of humor."

The young man chuckled. "Yeah, either that or they really like their scotch."

"Either way, they're my type of folks," she answered, laughing and reaching out to put a hand on Johnnie's arm.

"Hey John," Clark greeted as he sidled up next to the two. "I expected to see your dad this morning."

Johnnie reached out to accept Clark's offer of a handshake as he replied, "Yeah, I offered to take the run this morning. Everybody's been buzzing about your houseguest since Louie dropped her out here." He flashed Lois a wide grin. "I wanted to come and see for myself."

Lois bit on her lower lip. "So what's the verdict?" she asked, lowering her chin and looking up at him through her eyelashes.

Appropriately flustered, Johnnie stammered out a response. "Ah, he ah, didn't do you justice."

Clicking her teeth, Lois moved to tuck her arm around Johnnie's elbow and turned so they both were facing Clark. "Hear that, Farm boy? I'm stunning."

"And conceited," Clark muttered under breath.

Shooting Clark a glare, she returned her attention to her new friend. "So, Johnnie… what do you have planned for the rest of the afternoon?"

-----  
_tbc..._


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N:** So, I considered waiting until this fic was completed to post it here because of the formatting issues (I don't go through and italicize stuff as I write, etc.) but the truth of the matter is, I don't have enough time in life to worry about those things, and probably won't go back and italicize because I like the way the asterisk plays in this story... so if that is a deal breaker for you, sorry. :) Don't read any further._

_*cracks open book* _

_Now, __where were we?_

-----

**[-4-]**

**-----  
**

Lois crossed her arms over her chest as she watched the Walker Landing truck turn onto the main road from the end of the long drive. "Well that was rude."

Clark turned away from her and began organizing bales of hay into different piles.

She turned to face him. "You ran him off!"

"He had other deliveries to make," Clark answered with finality. "I'm going to go get the tractor."

Lois's attention was immediately redirected. "Oh! I'm coming! I get to drive, right?"

Clark warded her off with a raised hand. "No. You get to stack," he said pointing toward the barn. "You're not qualified to drive the tractor."

"Not qualified?! I'll have you know that I drive a Hummer 2 in SoCal traffic on a regular basis." At Clark's expression she frowned. "You *do* know what an H2 is, don't you?"

He nodded. "I just can't figure out why you need a military-spec off-road vehicle in Los Angeles."

She scoffed. "You've obviously never had to navigate Roberston Boulevard after having brunch at The Ivy."

Clark rolled his eyes. "The answer is still no to the tractor." He pointed to the hay again. "Stack."

Lois's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'm about really tired of your autocratic power trip."

Clark's eyes narrowed as well. "Okay, fine. Let's make it a democracy. I'll give you a choice: stack the hay or muck the stalls." With that, he turned and stalked away muttering angrily to himself under his breath.

He was about to round the side of the barn when he was forced to sidestep in order to avoid running over his mother.

"Where's the fire?" she asked in surprise.

"Sorry, Mom. I'm just going to get the tractor so I can spread the bales around the field."

Martha peered around him to look at the stacks of hay in the drive next to the barn. "Of course. I thought I'd get a chance to say hello to Johnnie. He usually helps you stack when he comes by."

"Yeah, well. Now we've got Lois," he said with obviously false optimism.

Martha looked at him quizzically. "Lois, huh? I would have guessed that she would have been an *incentive* for Johnnie to stick around a little longer."

Clark's brow furrowed. "She has no standards."

"Standards?"

"She was flirting with him!"

Martha looked back toward the hay bales and noticed that Lois was now reclining on one of them, having completely removed her flannel outer shirt and using it as a blanket. "I see," she said knowingly.

He followed her gaze and, knowing that her tone said more than her words, asked, "What does that mean?"

The older woman gazed up at him for a few silent seconds; a mischievous smile threatening to spread across her face. "Honey, you were jealous."

"Jealous?! Of what? No, I wasn't!" When his mother merely raised her eyebrows in response, he added, "She was trying to get him to do her work! I was saving him from her manipulations."

Martha nodded seriously. "Clark, it's an understandable reaction. She is *awfully* pretty."

Clark's expression steeled. "I'm not attracted to her," he stated. "I'm not." He flicked an angry glance toward where Lois lay sunbathing. "I'm going to go get the tractor."

~\s/~

Lois paced back and forth outside of the stables. "God, Chlo, it's barbaric out here. I swear it's like modern aged slavery..." After Clark had returned with the tractor and reiterated his ultimatum, she had chosen the chore that would offer some privacy. She had no intention of *actually* mucking the stalls.

"…No! I will not be able to stay here until Sam figures out that I've had enough. I played his game for five days. If he doesn't call his own bluff, I'll find my own way out." She sidestepped a large muddy pond as she continued to rant. "It's inhumane. Everything smells like sh…," she paused, glancing around for hidden cameras before selecting a new word, "…crap—and I mean *everything*—and this damn chicken they have out here refuses to let me sleep past the witching hour…"

"…I *know* it's a rooster! That's not the point!"

"Aren't you supposed to be working in the stalls?"

The sudden introduction of a new voice alerted Lois to the fact that she really had been caught and caused her to drop her phone. Trying to catch it before it hit the ground, she bobbled it a few times before watching in horror as it bounced off of her shoe and into the mud pit. "Damnit!" she exclaimed, rushing over and preparing to go fishing.

"Uh… I don't think you want to do that," Clark warned.

"That's my phone… I need my phone. It's like my life… my only connection to the outside world… to civilization!" she stammered, looking up at him with wild eyes.

Clark grimaced as she plunged both arms elbow-deep into the sludge. "It's just… that's not mud."

Lois pulled her arms out of the thick mire with her phone in tow. She used the hand that wasn't holding the phone to wipe at some of the liquid that had splashed onto her upper lip. "Then what is it?"

Clark raised his eyebrows and gave her a pointed look.

With dawning comprehension, Lois's face blanched. When she looked down at the now dead appliance in her hand, she screamed. When she looked at the liquid manure that was caked and dripping from her arms, she screamed again.

A few seconds later, Clark was looking on in mild amusement as she ran around in zigzagged circles, screaming in revulsion and protest at her dad, at her life, and at anything that had ever pooped.

~\s/~

Lois had lasted a full fifteen hours without her phone before she gave into desperation and braved the eight mile walk into town. Bone tired and defeated, she was sitting on the wooden bench outside of Harris Handies when the Kent's red truck slowed to a stop in front of her.

"Lois?" Martha called from the driver's side window. "Honey, what on Earth are you doing out here?" Looking around in confusion, she asked, "Is Clark with you?"

Blowing her bangs out of her face, Lois pushed herself off of the bench and limped over to the truck. "No. It's just me."

"Just you?" Frowning, Martha gestured for the young woman to go around to the other side of the vehicle and get in. "Sweetie, how did you get to town?"

Lois sighed as she moved the grocery bags to the side and slid into the seat. "Walked, hitchhiked… mostly walked."

Putting the truck into motion, Martha glanced at her passenger in concern. "Lois, if you wanted to come into town so badly, you could have come with me to do the shopping…" She frowned. "Is everything okay?"

Closing her eyes, Lois leaned her head against the window. "No, I mean, yes, everything is fine now. I just needed to make a phone call."

"Why didn't you just call from the house?"

Lois's eyes popped open and then narrowed angrily. "Why didn't I just call from the house," she repeated flatly, silently cursing Clark Kent for tricking her, "because there's a phone. In the house."

Martha turned her head to regard Lois briefly. "Of course there's a phone in the house."

Lois pressed her lips together tightly to keep from speaking. Her attention was caught by the sight of a Pop Watcher's magazine sticking out from one of the paper bags. Pulling it out, she smiled at the image on the cover of a young blonde musician and her polka-dotted acoustic guitar. "Mrs. Kent, I wouldn't have expected you to be a Sully fan."

Martha glanced down at the item in Lois's hands and chuckled. "Oh no, that's not for me, Dear," she answered. "That's for Clark. Anytime there's a story about Chloe Sullivan in a magazine, he wants it."

Arching an eyebrow as she digested that information, Lois settled back into her seat feeling smug. Her trip to town had suddenly become more profitable than expected. Not only had she talked her cousin into coming to rescue her from Exile Island, she had finally learned a name she could drop that would actually cause Clark Kent to turn his head.

She smiled, lost in imagining how bringing Clark's popstar crush onto the scene just before packing her bags and taking off would make him regret not being as impressed with Lois Lane and her connections as he should have been.

Yes, Lois thought as the truck rumbled down Route 8 to a soundtrack of down home country and bluegrass, she was finally back on top.

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	5. Chapter 5

-----  
**Pride, Prejudice and Jimmy Choos**

[-5-]  
-----

Hearing the sound of tires on the gravel driveway, Lois froze, rendered immobile by the sudden uncertainty of which way to move. It had been the proverbial rare cool day in hell—Martha and Clark had left her alone on the farm while they went out to buy feed or do some other earth-tiller focused duty, and she had taken advantage of the time to do absolutely nothing. Now that they were apparently back, she was trying to figure out the best place to hide in order to prolong her 'mental health experience'.

The sound of a slamming car door spurred her into action, and she dove under the covers of her bed, thinking that if she appeared to be asleep Clark wouldn't make her work. If she weren't already starting to see the sign of calluses, she might have thought she was getting paranoid.

She crouched deeper under the covers as footsteps sounded on the steps of the porch, and then clinched her eyes shut when they were followed with knocking.

"Lois?"

She cracked one of her eyes open at the sound of her name when she realized that the voice didn't belong to Clark or his mother. The other eye quickly followed suit when she realized who it was.

If Chloe Sullivan was startled by the sudden appearance of her cousin when the door jerked open, she was even more flabbergasted when said cousin threw herself into her arms, knocking them both into the creaky porch railing.

Chloe struggled to get out of the death hold Lois had on her. "Lo… can't… breathe."

"Oh, right," Lois breathed, loosening her hold but not releasing it. "Sorry, I'm just *really* glad you're here."

Chloe chuckled and returned the hug, now having the use of her arms. "It's good to see you too."

Lois finally stepped back, quickly glancing around before pulling Chloe back through the door of the cottage.

"Wow," Chloe said as she took in the room's décor… and Lois's messy contribution to it. "And I thought what you did to that hotel in Prague was bad."

Lois frowned at the room. "What? I straightened up a little this morning…" she said, bending to pick up a few clothing items from the floor.

"I'm teasing," Chloe answered, moving further into the room and sitting down on the couch. "Why is there a rooster in your window?"

Lois sighed. "Remember the living alarm clock I told you about?" She shoved clothes into her suitcase and flopped down next to the petite blonde before waving an arm around. "Can you believe Sam and Tess did this to me?"

Chloe arched an eyebrow and hid a smirk. "That bad?"

"Worse," Lois replied dramatically. "I feel like I've been cut off from my entire being. I don't know what's going on in the world… I don't know if Pink's hair is blonde, if Brangelina adopted an octobaby, or if… hey, did you bring me a new phone?"

When Chloe pulled a small wrapped package out of her purse, Lois launched at her again. "You are my own personal hero," she said, squishing the younger woman's face between the palms of her hands. Leaning in, she kissed Chloe's forehead and then abruptly pushed her away, immediately attacking the wrapping on the box and pulling out the new iPhone.

"Geeze, I have to reset all my favorites," Lois said as she furiously tapped buttons on the screen. "What have I missed? What have they been saying about me? Is the Hawaii spa story sticking? Lola can *not* be connected to a farm—it'll ruin my image."

Chloe blinked and frowned. "Wait… your image or Lola's?"

Lois glanced up at her briefly before returning her attention to the phone. "Lois's, Lola's, whatever."

"When did you start talking about yourself in the third person?"

"Chloe!"

Raising her hands, the blonde finally gave her cousin what she wanted. "Well, no one has tied *Lola* to a farm but since there has been no sighting of you—I mean, her—on any of the islands, people started to question if you were really there…"

Lois narrowed her eyes. "And by people you mean?"

Chloe nodded, already knowing what Lois had assumed. "Jiminez Olsen."

Lois shifted in her seat to fully face Chloe. "What. Did. He. Say?"

"Relax. Tess is not the best in the business because she can yodel… She's got Lola firmly under control as far as the mainstream press is concerned; the only wildcards are those underground slugs that buy into Himee's rumors."

"Rumors which say…" Lois started, indicating with her hands that Chloe should continue.

"Which say that Lola has actually been shacked up with a boytoy."

Lois scoffed. "When will people let that die? Ollie and I are just friends now."

Chloe shook her head. "No, not your off- and on-again underwear model."

Lois took in her cousin's remorseful look and started to get worried. "Who?" When Chloe appeared reluctant to respond, she pressed, "Chlo-e?"

Hesitating a bit, Chloe answered under her breath in a mishmash of words, "Alexanderluthor."

Lois sprang to her feet. "What?!"

"The worst part is that his camp is not denying it…"

"Ohhh, that is one dead trustfund twerp when I get out of here. Lola wouldn't be caught with that overgrown manboy in a billion years."

Clearly amused by her reaction, Chloe entered, "He's kinda cute if you look past the…"

"BILLION, Chloe."

Chloe pressed her lips together and forced her expression to sober. "So… I'm looking at your so-called 'Hell on Earth' but it seems nice to me. It can't be all that bad. Dude ranches are supposed to be fun."

"Oh, sure—if you define fun as a serving torture with a side of hay."

Ignoring her, Chloe continued, "Tell me… is there a cowboy?"

Lois paused in her pacing around the room and faced her cousin; an indulgent smirk suddenly splitting across her face. "Boy is there," she gushed. Then she frowned. "But he's such a jerk."

Chloe's eyebrows raised in surprise and disbelief. "Really?"

Not noticing her cousin's look, Lois nodded. "Absolutely. If I could take the body and erase the personality, I'd never walk again."

"Lois!"

"I'm just saying, Chlo, he puts *Ollie* to shame, and that's saying something."

"Well… wow, I guess."

"But he apparently hates Lola, and Lois is not too fond of him either."

"Okay, I thought it was strange earlier, but the third person switching is really getting to be disturbing."

Shrugging, Lois glanced out the window and caught sight of the Kent's red truck turning into the drive and parking behind a blue rental car. "Perfect," she said, smiling and rubbing her hands together. "Let the games begin."

Standing up to see what Lois was looking at through the window, Chloe's brow creased. "What are you talking about?"

Spinning around, Lois grabbed the shorter girl by her shoulders, leading her away from the window and toward the door. "Chlo- I know that I begged you to come down here and asked you to bring me the phone, but I need *one* more teeny-tiny favor."

"Lois…"

"No, listen, I've been dying to find something that will *finally* take this farm boy down a notch and this is my chance. I want you stand here and when I say surprise you pop out okay?"

"Lois, I don't think…"

"Surprise and pop, got it?" Without waiting for an answer she pulled open the door and stepped out onto the porch.

"You have company, Dear?" Martha called from where she was pulling a small bag from the cab of the truck.

Lois crossed the short distance and reached for one of the other bags. Her greeting of "Here, let me help you with that," drew a look of disbelief from both mother and son.

"Yes," Lois added in response to Martha's earlier question, "I have a visitor and when you guys meet her I think you'll be pleasantly…"

"Gumble!"

Lois watched in stunned surprise as Clark dropped the large bag of feed he had been toting and ran up the porch steps to sweep Chloe up in a big hug. "Gumble?" she mouthed to herself, setting the bag she was holding back down and peering at the two people on the porch. "I didn't say surprise yet."

~\s/~

Twenty minutes later, Clark and Chloe were sitting on the porch swing at the main house sipping lemonade.

"I'm still finding it hard to believe that Lois is your cousin," Clark remarked, glancing in the direction of the cottage. "You two are *so* different."

Chloe shrugged. "Not *that* much."

"No, *really* different," he assured her. "Her dad paid my mom an obscene amount of money to deal with her just so he wouldn't have to."

"That's not quite how it went," Chloe mumbled around her glass.

Clark didn't look convinced. "Yeah, well, she looked pretty pissed that we already knew each other."

"I wouldn't call it pissed, per se…"

"Chloe, she kicked you out."

Chloe smirked. "I don't think the reveal went quite the way she planned. When I reminded her that I grew up in Smallville, she said that she hadn't thought that was a real place. She thought it was part of my press junket."

Clark laughed. "Where did she think she's been all this time if not Smallville?"

"Hawaii," she said over her laughter, then seeing Clark's expression, amended, "I'm kidding. She just knew she was in Kansas. She's just not that interested in details."

"Kansas is pretty big," he said. "If she doesn't know where she is, how does she get around?"

"Well as Lo would say, 'there's an app for that!'" she mimicked while pretending to hold up a cell phone, causing them both to erupt into laughter.

"Man, I thought she was going to spontaneously combust when her phone died. She practically had a mini-breakdown on the spot. Seriously, Chloe, I can't see why you'd even claim to be related to someone as spoiled and callow as she is."

Chloe's expression sobered a bit. "She hasn't had it easy…"

"Right, because having maids and chefs and personal trainers at your beck and call make life really hard. I can imagine that walking around with only yourself as your main interest can make you *great* company."

"Clark, the Lois you see now… She… hasn't really been herself lately. That's not the Lois I grew up with."

"Humph. What was that whole 'thirty-five' thing she yelled at you about?"

"That's how long she plans on being mad at me for." At his confusion, she continued to explain, "When we were younger, Lois decided that life was too short to spend it angry, so she decides how long to be mad and then lets it go."

Clark silently pondered that for a minute. "That sounds… surprisingly mature," he finally said.

Chloe tilted her head to the side and smiled. "Lois is quite complex." When his answering expression showed how much in doubt of that fact he was, she lifted her hands in defeat.

"Enough talk about your pain of a cousin," Clark said, changing the subject, "let's talk about Lola Dakota."

Chloe smirked at the irony. "Lola? Why?"

"Because the fact that Lola Dakota is a total train wreck essentially has caused your career to skyrocket! You have to be pretty excited about that."

Chloe and her family had left Smallville when she was sixteen so she could pursue her music career since a small farming community in the rural ranges of a land-locked state wasn't the best place to make it big. She had been moderately successful for quite a while, but hadn't really hit the mainstream until recently. Her long-running gig as Lola Dakota's opening act had meant that she had become the main event in front of a national audience when Lola hadn't appeared for her GMA concert. The descent of Lola Dakota had become the precursor to Chloe Sullivan's launch.

"Maybe a little," she replied, obviously conflicted.

"Don't tell me you feel sorry for Lola Dakota," Clark growled. "She walked into this situation on her own." Shaking his head, he turned and gave her a bright grin. "I'm just really happy for you. You really deserve all the attention you're getting now."

"Well, thanks," Chloe responded, blushing.

"Just don't go and get all Hollywood on us and forget where you came from."

"I'm here aren't I?" she shot back, laughing. "Don't worry, I've seen what fame can do to a person. I'm good."

"I'm glad." Clark placed an arm around her shoulders and gave her short squeeze. "Did I tell you that 'Follow Me' is my new favorite song?" he asked as he pulled his arm away.

"Clark, you say that about every new song I come out with."

He shrugged. "Okay, so I'm biased. I'll admit that, but that song really is my favorite of all time. The phrasings and the way you went sotto during the bridge… Amazing. Really."

Chloe tilted her head. "Listen to you sounding all Mr. Holland's Opus. When did you go all Music Theory 101 on me?"

"I started getting interested in it about the time you moved," he said sheepishly. "Seriously, it's pretty powerful—the lyrics, I mean. It's sad but hopeful, you know?" He grinned at her. "Of course you know. You wrote it."

"Yeah," Chloe agreed, looking away, "I love that song too." Shaking her head to renew her thoughts, she grinned at her old friend. "Well, everyone knows what I've been up to the last few years, but what about you? I'm kind of shocked to see you still on the farm. When I moved away sophomore year you were already itching to get out of this place."

Clark's gaze turned toward the fields as he nodded but didn't reply.

"And now?" Chloe pressed, unsure of what his solemn demeanor indicated. "Graduation was, what, three years ago? What happened to going to Mr. I'm-going-to-college-and-seeing-the-world?"

"Money got tight," he replied with a noncommittal shrug.

"I thought you were offered full-rides to like three different schools for football."

Clark turned back to face her with an amused expression. "How is it that you know all that stuff when I only get a rushed phone call once a year on my birthday and a card at Christmas?"

Chloe ducked her head. "Okay, low blow. I hear the insinuation that I have not been as communicative as you would like. All I can say is life in the fast lane is really… crazy. But that's not an excuse and I promise to do better." She grimaced and peeked up at him, putting up her pinkie for insurance. "Deal?"

"I'm holding you to that," Clark replied, curling his own pinkie around hers to shake. "So who is feeding you your information about my life?"

Chloe shrugged. "I've got to protect my sources," she teased, "but I think you can draw some comfort from the fact that my material is obviously outdated. So what *did* happen with the football thing?"

Clark pressed his lips together grimly. "After Dad…" he paused and gave a halfhearted one shoulder shrug. "I just needed to stay around. The world just got so much larger and threatening when he wasn't around."

"I'm sorry," Chloe said softly, reaching out to place her hand over his where it rested on his knee.

They sat there silently caught up in their own thoughts until another voice interrupted the peace.

"So what the hell is a Gumble anyway?" Lois demanded, clomping up the steps and positioning herself against the railing in front of the swing.

Clark rolled his eyes. "I thought you were supposed to let it go after thirty-five minutes," he mumbled.

Lois shot a glare at Chloe. "You told him?" Then she turned back to face Clark. "For your information, what I let go of is none of your business."

He feigned being heartbroken at the response. "Awww, and here I was hoping that you'd finally ended your affair with my rooster." He nodded behind her, and both Lois and Chloe turned to see that, sure enough, the farm's rooster had followed her across the yard.

Lois groaned and lifted a hand to cover her closed eyes, realizing that the presence of the bird lessened the effect of her witty comebacks. "Can I help it if Rosco is the only one on this farm who appreciates me?" she finished lamely.

Chloe took in their banter with amusement as she looked from one to the other with a raised brow.

"I wish you would stop calling him Rosco," Clark returned, annoyed.

Lois shrugged. "You never told me his name."

"That's because he doesn't have a name."

"Then I don't see why it's a problem that I named him!" Lois answered. She turned to face the rooster, "You're welcome, Rosco."

Chloe frowned and held up a hand. "Wait- Rosco, like Chicken and Waffles Rosco? Isn't that more of a description than a name?"

Clark scoffed. "You would think so, right? But this one over here," he gestured toward Lois with his thumb, "practically set up a picket line when she was asked to go out and catch dinner."

Glaring at him, Lois addressed Chloe's question for herself. "Rosco's name started out as a threat when he tried to eat my shoe." She glanced at her cousin before continuing, "We've since come to a shaky truce." She faced Clark again. "And as for the picket line deal… I simply refused to be made an accessory to murder."

Clark sighed and crossed his arms against his chest. "It was a chicken, Lois."

Setting her jaw, she gave him a cursory look. "Speaking of names that are fitting descriptions…" she responded in a light—and obviously pointed—tone.

Chloe's eyes widened. "Um…"

Clark stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Smirking, Lois tilted her head. "Oh, I don't know. Something that rhymes with 'Momma's Boy'… oh, wait… no, that's it."

Clark stood from the swing and glared down at her. Her words had struck a nerve but he was unwilling to give her the satisfaction of knowing it. "That might be offensive if it weren't coming from a naïve, overstuffed, self-indulged, ego-maniac."

Also rising to her feet, Chloe tried again to interrupt. "Guys…"

"Ohhh! Those are some big words for a manure farmer. You left out the part where you call me a troglodyte ignoramus with a limited capacity for etymology."

Clark's eyes narrowed dangerously. Finally, he nodded curtly. "Yeah. I forgot that part." Then he stepped past her and stomped down the steps, heading toward the barn.

After watching him disappear through the large doors, Lois turned back to see Chloe looking at her assessingly. "What? He gave just as good as he got."

Chloe tilted her head as she silently agreed. "It's just… I think college is a sore topic. He didn't go."

Lois shrugged. "Neither did I."

"Yeah, but he *wanted* to," Chloe challenged. Then, after a beat, she gazed out over the field and amended, "At least he once did."

Lois seemed to consider that for a brief moment before tossing the thought away. "So what is the Gumble story anyway?"

Chloe blinked as she returned to focus on the moment. "Oh, um, First Grade. Clark was the new kid and I was apparently in my costume phase. Halloween had passed but I still wore the Bumble Bee suit Mom had made for me that year. Anyway, Clark had somewhat of a speech impediment at the time- mix that with the fact that he couldn't remember my name, and you get Gumble."

Lois frowned. "That's… cute, I guess," she finished, unconvinced. She turned and went down the steps, moving in the direction of the cottage. "You coming?" she called over her shoulder when Chloe didn't immediately follow.

"Uh, yeah- I'm just going to take these back inside first," Chloe replied, pointing to the glasses that she and Clark had been drinking from.

"Fine," Lois said, waving a hand over her shoulder. "You know where I'll be."

Chloe nodded before leaning over to pick up the glasses. She opened the screen door leading to the kitchen and stepped through.

"Oh thank you, dear," Martha said as Chloe set the glasses next to the sink a few feet from where the older woman was chopping vegetables. "You are planning on staying for dinner, right?"

Chloe hesitated, "Well, I don't want to impose…"

"Nonsense," Martha entered. "There's always plenty and it's not every day that I have a famous recording artist at my table," she teased.

Chloe laughed, shaking her head. "Can I ask you something?"

Setting down her knife, Martha gave the petite blonde her full attention. "Of course."

"I mean, you can totally tell me that it's none of my business, if you want…" she hedged.

"Chloe… spit it out."

Chloe chuckled. "It's just… Clark. He's different."

Martha's brow creased but she didn't respond.

"I mean, he's still Clark, of course, but when Lois called me and described him, I didn't believe it. The Clark I grew up with was always so… nice and… meek. Is meek a bad thing to call someone?"

Martha smiled and shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Okay, so meek it is, then, I guess. We hadn't had a real conversation for a while, but still he was still Clark today—maybe a little… dimmer? You know? Like, I remember him being so bright… Does that make sense? But then, Lois came out, and it was like…"

"…Two angry cats in a bag?"

The two women shared a look and began laughing. After a moment Martha sobered and nodded. "I know what you mean." She smiled sadly. "Sometimes I think Clark lost his father right when he needed him the most."

"Oh," Chloe released under her breath, looking down at the counter, unsure of how to respond. She'd been around death and loss before, but fortunately never directly. She'd heard that people didn't like for others to apologize though. Sure, Jonathan Kent's death wasn't her fault, but she felt the clichéd response hover on her tongue. "I'm…" she started, then faltered.

A hand resting on her shoulder caused her to raise her gaze again. "I know," Martha said. "I'm glad that you *see* Clark. I'm glad that you care."

Chloe mentally shook her head at the notion that this woman, who was on the suffering end of the situation at hand, was comforting *her*. "That makes sense, then… that Clark is a little withdrawn," she finished awkwardly.

"Hmm."

Chloe couldn't tell if Martha's non-syllabic response was conciliatory or not, but figured that either way, it was a cue to back away from the core of that topic. "But he's not so withdrawn when Lois is around," she observed lightly.

A genuinely amused smile returned to the older woman's face and Chloe got the impression that most of its bluster was in response to some unspoken thought bouncing around somewhere in Martha's mind. "No," she agreed with a chuckle. "When Lois is around, we see a whole new side to Clark."

~\s/~

_tbc... _


	6. Chapter 6

-----  
**Pride, Prejudice and Jimmy Choos**

[-6-]  
-----

"Well it's about time!" Lois exclaimed as she answered Chloe's knock on the door. "Did you get lost on the way to the kitchen?"

Ignoring her cousin's sarcastic barb—something she had gotten really good at over the years—Chloe stepped into the room before pausing in shock. "Whoa! You cleaned up?"

Lois frowned and looked around the room. "Cleaned up? No, I packed," she replied brightly, gesturing toward the suitcases that were lined against the wall near the door.

Chloe grimaced. "Packed?"

Lois's eyes narrowed slightly at Chloe's weak return. "Chloe." The rest of her statement—the 'what aren't you telling me?' part—went unspoken.

Biting her lower lip, the petite blonde smiled gently. "I didn't come out here to pick you up, Lo."

Confused, Lois raised a hand. "I see your lips moving, but I don't understand a word you just said."

Chloe arched an eyebrow but didn't reply.

"Chloe!" Lois's eyes widened as she threw up both hands and paced further into the room. "What do you mean you're not here to pick me up?! You see the Hell Sam and Tess stuck Lola in!"

Chloe leaned against the closed door she'd just entered through. "I kinda think Lola needs it," she mumbled under her breath, obviously conflicted about disagreeing with her older cousin about something like this.

Offended, Lois sank down on the bed and sent a heated glare across the room. "Et tu, Brutus? Leave me to rot while you bask in Lola Dakota's glory?"

Chloe sighed. "It's not like that, Lois, and you know it. Listen to yourself. It's Lola this and Lola that. Where does Lois fit into all of this?"

"What are you talking about? Lois is right here."

"Is she really?" Chloe rolled her eyes. Now she had gotten caught up in the whole third person thing. "I mean, are you?" When Lois looked at her with clear confusion, Chloe went on, "With the way you've been acting lately, I'm not sure which persona is dominant anymore. The worst part is that I don't think *you* are even sure half the time."

Lois replied with a dismissive one-shoulder shrug.

"Or," Chloe said, warily yet with dawning certainty, "you know exactly what you're doing and you're purposely letting Lola possess you twenty-four seven."

"Geeze," Lois scoffed. "Possession, Chloe? Really?"

Chloe's eyes narrowed, undeterred. "Why on Earth would you want to be Lola Dakota all the time? She's naïve. She's insincere. She's…"

"…Fun," Lois entered. "She's rich and she has friends. She has a *career* for Pete's sake! Lois Lane, on the other hand, is stuck on a farm somewhere between Podunk and Hicksville… with a cousin who refuses to play Scofield to her Burrows."

Chloe rolled her eyes at the Prison Break alliteration. "And you don't see the correlation there?"

"You mean the correlation of you being free and me being… not?"

"No. The one where you lose yourself to your creation and the people who love you trying to stop it from happening."

Lois favored her cousin with a mock serious face. "Love doesn't hurt, Chloe. Didn't you see my after school special?"

Chloe couldn't help but release a small smile at the fact that Lois wasn't angry enough that her humor was gone. Then again, the fact that Lois wasn't taking the conversation seriously meant that she really was committed to becoming Lola full-time. She suddenly sobered at the thought. "I'm seriously concerned, Lois."

"You're seriously overdramatic, Chloe. Lola's larger than life, but she's harmless."

"Harmless? I don't call missing a nationally televised concert harmless."

Lois rolled her eyes and fell back onto the bed. "Merely an oversight."

Chloe let out a bark of incredulous laughter. "An oversight, huh?"

Lois quickly say back up and peered at her cousin. "Hey what are you complaining about? Sully stock skyrocketed after Lolagate."

Chloe was quiet for a few minutes as they dueled gazes. Finally she sighed and shook her head, breaking the silent test of wills.

Lois released a long breath, her aloofness apparently waning. "Thanks for brining the phone, but if you're not here to help me and my luggage cross the border then…"

Chloe's jaw tightened. Musical ability wasn't the only thing that the cousins shared. "Not so fast. I'm not leaving yet. First of all, I was invited to dinner, and second, I'm staying the night so you might as well make room for me in that bed," she countered, making Lois arch an eyebrow, "and finally… I had a feeling you wouldn't be too happy with me at this point, so I brought you something as a peace offering."

Lois silently battled against her affinity for gifts as she weighed her cousin's counter. If she acquiesced to Chloe's challenge, the conversation they were having—which she wasn't particularly enjoying—would undoubtedly continue.

She studied Chloe's face. The smug expression that she saw there made her curious about what the surprise was. It had to be Ace-in-the-Hole good. "Fine. Whatever," she sighed. Then, trying not to appear eager, "What'd you bring me?"

Chloe grinned, definitely pleased with herself, and pushed away from the wall. Opening the door, she held up a finger toward Lois and leaned out of the door.

Lois watched in amused confusion as her cousin's torso disappeared as she bent over to pick something up that was currently out of her sight. When Chloe was upright again, she pulled a black guitar case in front of her and closed the door.

Lois perked slightly. "You brought me a guitar?"

"Not just any guitar," Chloe responded, picking up the case, carrying it across the room and setting it on the bed next to Lois. She stepped back and nodded at it. "Open it."

Frowning at Chloe's just-under-the-lid excitement, Lois flipped the clasps on the case and lifted the top. When she took in the Cherry finish acoustic that lay cushioned inside, she gasped. "Lucy," she said reverently, hesitating to even touch the prized possession. She looked up at Chloe. "How did you get this out of the vault? Does Sam know you have this? That *I* have this?"

Chloe shook her head. "No, he doesn't know, and no, I can't reveal my sources."

The words after the first "No" were pretty much lost on Lois as she stared down at the guitar.

"She would have wanted you to have it. Not for it to be hung up in some museum-worthy display case," Chloe said softly.

~\s/~

Clark sighed as he crossed through the main gate of the small cemetery that had served generations of the Kent family for as long as they had been living in Smallville. After his argument with Lois, he'd gone to let off some steam while finishing up the day's chores. It hadn't really worked, and yet while he was angrily pounding nails into repaired posts, a thought had occurred to him to explain his short temper.

He hadn't talked to his Dad since before Lois had arrived… and that wasn't normal for him.

Strolling along the path with obvious familiarity, Clark arrived at the solemn headstone that did little to represent the essence and full life of the man whose name and title was etched on the surface. Clark held no delusions about the location—he believed that if his father could in fact hear him beyond the grave, he could hear him anywhere—but the practice of coming to the site held symbolic, if not comforting, meaning for him.

"Hey, Dad," Clark greeted, bending over to clear the few wild grasses that had sprouted during his absence. "It's been a while. I'm sorry about that."

He moved over to the stone bench that was adjacent to the grave and sat down. "Things got a little crazy at home for a while there." Smiling, he raised his eyebrows and added, "Not that they aren't still crazy. We have a house guest… at least that's what Mom calls her. More like a house *pest* if you ask me. She's loud, she's annoying, argumentative…" Catching himself, he paused. "When I said all this to Mom, she accused me of being attracted to her."

Shaking his head, he leaned forward and braced his elbows against his knees. "That's not even in the realm of possibilities." For a quiet moment he just sat and looked at his clasped fingers. "I let her get to me today. Normally, that wouldn't happen. Chloe is her cousin—can you believe it? I can't.

"The thing is, I don't even know why she got to me. I mean, sure, she made some back-handed comment about me being illiterate, but I can't really say that *that* was what did it." He sighed and sat back up. "I know what you're going to say. The school thing, right?" His brow creased. "I just…"

He stopped just short of his standard response—("…can't leave mom")—knowing that both he and his father would not be fooled by that one… And Clark had been trying to fool himself for years.

Senior year had started full of promise for Clark. He had already accepted a football scholarship to A&M, he was pretty much footloose and fancy free, as his mom had often said. Sure, he'd had to overcome some major weirdness in a relatively short span of time in his life… namely strange abilities and an even stranger tale about meteor showers and space craft… but overall he'd been as close to carefree as they come.

The "we found you in a space pod" story told to him by his parents had thrown Clark for a loop when he was fifteen. The fact that they hadn't been able to keep the craft had made it even harder to believe, and the huge metal marble that they were able to retrieve didn't do much to make the case. The non-answers bothered him for a while, but as he got ahold of his powers, his confidence grew. He was invincible.

Then his father died.

And if all of that weren't enough, the metal marble had chosen the day of the funeral to wake up and speak. Not only was he an alien from a distant galaxy, but he was the last survivor of a dead world.

The death of Jonathan Kent right after Christmas shook Clark to his core and showed him that while he couldn't be physically harmed, his soul could be shattered. He was vulnerable through love—and so it was by not loving that he protected himself while vowing to protect those of his loved ones that were left… lest once again, he survive alone.

"I'm not illiterate," Clark ground out, suddenly fighting memories of once-held goals and future plans delayed. "Troglodyte. Noun. From the Latin, Troglodytae meaning he who delves in holes. A crass and savage being. One who dwells in caves and resists civilization and social activity," he rattled off. "That's what I wanted to say back to her. That's what I was *about* to say, but then I started thinking about *why* I needed to say anything back at all and in the end it just looked like I couldn't think of anything to say." He sighed. "So I walked away and looked like a coward. Who does that?"

Clark listened to the wind brushing through the leaves and could almost hear what his father would say in response… a response he didn't like too much.

"Oh, not you too," he groaned, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the stone. "I *don't* like her." He paused for emphasis before continuing, "but I do have a confession to make."

~\s/~

"So… I have a confession to make."

Lois raised her eyes from the guitar she was stroking to take in her cousin's sheepish expression. "Is this confession in the same category of you leaving me in Salem, Kansas?"

"*Smallville*, Kansas," Chloe corrected, "and… it depends."

Lois's gaze narrowed dangerously. "…On?"

"On… just how stoked you are that I brought you that guitar!"

Lois smirked at the blonde's effusion and let her eyes fall back down the guitar in her lap. "She always said that I was her first baby and Lucy was her second." Her brow creased as she began to think, "But if this were Blues Clues, and you were Blue, then the guitar of the late great Ella Dean Lane," she said, lifting the neck of the instrument into vision, "would be a paw print." Fixing Chloe unwaveringly in her sights, she arched the I-mean-business eyebrow. "What gives?"

Chloe chuckled nervously. "Coachella. The GMA deal got me a last minute invite… and I, uh, was hoping you'd help me with the playlist." She flashed a wide pretty-please-because-you-love-me smile and waited for an answer. She kept that smile just as bright for the entire five minutes that Lois glared at her.

Sighing, Lois shook her head and set her fingers in position to play an A-minor chord progression. "How long of a set did they give you?"

"Yes!" Chloe exclaimed, jumping up and rushing the bed. After hugging the older woman, she settled back onto the sofa and cleared her throat. "I mean, twelve minutes."

"Twelve minutes, huh?" Lois said thoughtfully as she continued working through a few warm-up exercises. She paused to tweak the tuners on the headstock. Closing her eyes, she began working her way flawlessly through "Asturias," Issac Albeniz's classic tune.

Chloe smiled as she watched Lois's fingers move deftly across the frets. It was in quiet moments like these that she loved being one of the few that knew this softer and freer version of Lois Lane.

A few minutes later, Lois halted the song after one of the slower movements and peered at Chloe with an assessing gaze. "While I definitely think you need to play the chart toppers, most of the people who attend the Fest are probably not going to know your stuff that well. You should really switch some stuff up. It'll be a great chance to attract a new fan base." She smirked. "Not everyone gets up in time to see Good Morning America."

Chloe nodded but frowned slightly. "Switch some stuff up?"

"Yeah, like… here let me show you." Working through the opening of one of Chloe's ballads, Lois increased the tempo slightly and started in on the lyrics. "I'm still not used to me/ I don't know who to be/ Can't find the missing pieces on my own/ Morning without you is like the sky without the blue/ I'm staring at a picture torn in two/ Torn in two…" Stopping right before the first chorus, she raised her eyebrows at Chloe in silent question.

"Yeah, I like that. I like that," Chloe said excitedly, chiming in, "I'm still not used to me, whoo! I don't know…"

"No," Lois interrupted. "There is no 'whoo!'" she said copying the high-pitched embellishment her cousin had included in her rendition of the song. "I didn't add a 'whoo!' when I wrote it; it doesn't need a 'whoo!' now. Don't add the 'whoo!'"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Fine. No 'whoo!' You singer-slash-songwriter types are so touchy," she said slouching back into the couch with a pout.

Lois smirked. "Yeah, as opposed to you singer-slash-singer types, right?" She started playing the song again, trying out different chord sets and arpeggios.

After listening for a while, Chloe perked up. "Don't you ever wish you could sing these songs yourself?"

Lois frowned. "Nah. I wrote them for you."

Chloe ran the opening lyrics through her mind again. (I'm still not used to me/ I don't know who to be…) "Did you?"

"Of course I did. A ballad for Lola has a 120 bpm tempo."

"Aaannd she's back," Chloe groaned, thinking that they were back to using the third-person point-of-view.

"Chloe, don't start. I was really enjoying our campfire-kumbaya moment."

"I'm just worried that Lola's on the verge of self-destruction and taking you with her."

"Maybe that's the way it should be," Lois muttered.

Chloe sat up and turned her body toward the bed where Lois still sat. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

In frustration, Lois played an ugly broken chord and set the guitar flat on her lap. "Nothing, Chloe. That's the point. It means nothing."

"That's not true, Lois. Your mom created Lola so you could still live your life as Lois. That's not 'nothing.' Nothing is what you are in danger of doing with her legacy."

"Touchy topic, Chloe. You so don't want to open that can," Lois warned in a low tone.

"No. Opening that can is *exactly* what I want to do! Every time someone tries to bring you back from the edge, you ignore them. Your mother wouldn't like who you 'as Lola' are letting yourself become."

"You always think you know everything!" Lois exclaimed, barely restraining from yelling at the top of her lungs. "My mother started calling me Lola when she taught me to sing Copacabana when I was three. You are right about one thing, though. She was a legend and after she died when I was six, she left a legacy; one so big that Lola Dakota was the only way Sam would let me anywhere near a stage. He said the world would see me only as a piece of the woman they knew as Ella the Great, and that they'd rip me apart just to get her. So I became Lola," she continued, hardly pausing for a breath in her pique, "and instead of becoming the artist that my dead mother could be proud of, Lois Lane simply doesn't exist!"

Chloe's green eyes had grown increasing wider throughout her cousin's speech and she felt chagrined as Lois finally revealed a glimpse into the turmoil that her dual identities were causing. When Lois stood from the bed and stalked toward the door, Chloe jumped to her feet. "Lois!"

Lois pulled the door open and without turning to face her cousin, held up one hand with the fingers spread. "Five minutes, Chloe. I don't want to talk to you for five minutes."

And with that, she stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her.

~\s/~

Clark looked around the empty cemetery, hesitating to expand on his previous statement. Confessing that he had a confession to make had been the easy part. Now that it was time to reveal rest, he was having a hard time spilling.

"I've been doing a lot of research on agricultural innovation," he said. "Lois doesn't appreciate it but there have been some recent developments in the use of manure to harvest methane gas for sustainable energy. When I tried explaining all of that to the city girl, she started calling me a manure farmer. Farming may be what I do, but it's not who I am," he finished strongly.

Sighing, he shrugged. "But you probably guessed that the whole manure thing isn't the confession." He dropped his head. "I don't think Mom wants to run the farm anymore… At least not to the extent that we have it now." He cleared his throat. "She keeps trying to nudge me into talking about law school again and I avoid the topic. I want to believe that she needs me here, but…"

He ran his hands along his thighs. "I found a business plan that she'd put together a while back. Organic foods. It was really good; really sound marketing ideas and everything. I think she's ready to put that MBA to work." He reached up with one hand and massaged the back of his neck. "Or she would be, if I didn't guilt trip her into not pursuing it. I mean, she didn't know I saw the plan or anything… I just, might have, maybe emphasized how important the farm was to this family… a little." Once again, he imagined hearing his father speak, only this time, he imagined the look on his dad's face as well. Nodding, he said, "I know. I know what you'd say, but… I'm scared," he finished in a whisper. "Not what you'd expect to hear from the world's strongest man, is it?"

He sat for a few minutes just letting the guilt of his actions—or inactions—flow over him. Finally, he stood, bending over the gravesite to press his fingers to the silent stone as a farewell. "Well, dinner should be ready, so I better get back. Talk to you soon, Dad. Wish you were still here. Every day."

With his head still down, Clark made his way back to the opening in the gate. He was taken by surprise when, in his distracted stride, he ran into another person—accidently causing them to fall. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, stooping to help the other party up. "Lois?"

"I didn't see you…" she explained as he pulled her to her feet. "I was just… walking," she explained, moving to go around him.

He frowned as he realized that she seemed to be avoiding looking at him. Against his conscious will, he felt some strain of concern flick through him. "Are you okay?" he asked, dipping his head in an attempt to see her face. Then his eyebrows rose. "Have you been crying?"

She scoffed but still didn't meet his gaze. "I got something in my eye," she replied, rubbing at the aforementioned body part. "Probably around the time you ran me over."

He didn't buy it but was unsure of how to respond… or even if he should. "Um, dinner… It'll probably ready soon."

Lois nodded and stepped around him. "Yeah. You go ahead. I'll be right there. I just want to walk a bit."

He turned as she stepped through the wrought iron gates. She was so unnaturally subdued that he found himself looking for something to bring back the spark. "You know, most people don't really consider cemeteries to be great places to hang out," he called after her.

She turned around and he could see that she had slid those damned designer sunglasses over her eyes. "Really?" she asked. "So what does that say about you?"

Nodding, he smirked and turned to walk away, all the while wondering the same exact thing to himself.

~\s/~

_...tbc_


	7. Chapter 7

[-7-]

Clark wiped his hands on his jeans as he exited the barn. As per usual, he had gotten up earlier than anyone else so he could get the brunt of the farm work done using his secret speed under the cover of darkness. Once dawn began to lighten the colors of the sky, he had slowed to a normal speed, finishing up just as the lights turned on in the kitchen. He flicked a glance over to the little white cottage as he stepped through the porch door.

"Morning," he greeted, seeing his mother pulling coffee filters out of the cabinet.

"Good Morning, Sweetheart," she replied with a smile. "I hate that you have to get up so early all of the time," Martha commented while measuring Arabica beans.

Clark smiled. "Mom, you know I don't need as much sleep as everyone else. My energy level is fine."

She frowned in response. "It may not bother you, but it bothers me. How would you know how fine your energy level could be if you're always limiting how much sleep you get. You need to sleep."

Knowing that nothing he could say would convince her otherwise, he just nodded. "Yes Ma'am."

He turned and looked out the window for a moment before speaking again. "It's been really quiet around here lately," he commented.

Martha chuckled. "It usually is at four thirty in the morning."

Clark turned back around. "No, I mean, overall… since Chloe left."

"Oh? How so?" Martha asked without looking up from her coffee preparations.

Rubbing a hand along his jaw, Clark considered how to frame what he was thinking. "Well, Lois, for starters," he said. "For the last three days she hasn't been nearly as abrasive as usual."

Clark wasn't sure if it was Chloe's departure itself or something Chloe had said to her in a private conversation, but Lois's demeanor had drastically dimmed after his blonde friend had left town.

"Abrasive?" Martha repeated. "I guess I haven't really noticed. You spend more time with her than I do…"

"Yeah, I do, and that's just it. She just gets up, does her chores with hardly a complaint—I mean, that in itself is pretty strange, right?—and then she retreats to her room until dinner. Even then, she's barely there. You've seen that right? It's like she's preoccupied or something."

Flipping the switch on the machine to start its percolating, Martha shrugged and placed her hands on the kitchen island, giving her son her full attention. "Well, Honey, maybe she just has a lot on her mind."

"Like what?"

A slight crease appeared on Martha's forehead and she tilted her head to the side.

Seeing his mother's look, Clark jumped to add to his question, "I mean, I don't care… I just… am curious."

One of Martha's eyebrows inched higher.

"I don't," he insisted at the expression change. "I'm just concerned in case it wears off and she needs another dose of whatever it is that makes her tolerable."

Martha nodded; her face at once disturbingly unexpressive. "Maybe you should ask her."

"Yeah," Clark agreed half-heartedly before glancing down at his soiled clothes. "I'm just going to go clean up."

~\s/~

Thirty minutes later, Lois wordlessly sidled up to Clark in the stables, taking her preferred pitchfork and setting to the task at hand with determination. He had taken some of the worst of the farm chores off of the duty roster—which wasn't really a stretch since he had invented them to make sure her dad got his money's worth in the first place.

On a normal day, they'd spend about an hour after waking to do some of the pre-breakfast stuff, and then after eating would get into the rest. Lois had once complained about how farm work was a twenty-four seven taste of hell, but in Clark's opinion, she had appeared to figure out the secret: if you did right the first time—and did it well—then it wouldn't take as long and you'd have more free time than you knew what to do with.

After a few minutes, Clark paused his own labor and looked over the wooden wall of the stable he was in to address her. "Morning."

Looking up from the hay she was strewing, Lois seemed to just realize that he was there. "Oh, yeah. Hey." With a nod, she turned back to what she was doing.

The dismissal made his eyes narrow. Sure, he had been annoyed during that first week when she talked incessantly about herself and made passes at him, but now that she wasn't even acknowledging his presence—and he was barely able to acknowledge his next thought—he was starting to miss it.

His eyes widened as he tried to mentally retrieve those thoughts from the universe. He didn't even want it out there. Recapturing his resolve to be annoyed, he let his back stiffen and tightened his grip on his own pitchfork.

Hell, if she could ignore him and not be bothered, he could too. Besides, it made for a quieter existence.

~\s/~

"Thanks, Mrs. Kent," Lois said, setting her lunch plate next to the sink where Martha was rinsing dishes to be put into the dishwasher.

"Oh, you're quite welcome, Honey," Martha replied with a wide smile. Her thoughts flitted to Clark's observations that morning. She couldn't say for sure that Lois was what was bothering him now, but he had finished lunch in a hurry and left the kitchen to the two women.

Lois was heading toward the kitchen door when Martha returned her focus to the here and now. "Lois, wait," she called, pulling her hands from the water and wiping them on a nearby towel.

Lois turned back toward the older woman expectantly.

"I have something that I want to show you," Martha explained, crossing toward the archway to the den and waving for Lois to follow. "Have a seat," she told Lois once they were in the room. "I just have to grab it."

Lois lowered onto the couch and watched as Martha went to the large chest that was sitting in the corner of the room and pulled the large knitted doily from the top of it. Kneeling down, Martha opened the chest and moved some unseen things around before pulling out what looked like a photo album with a dark blue cover.

Smiling, Martha rose to her feet and settled on the couch next to the younger woman. She flipped the book open and went forward a few pages. "Recognize anyone?"

Lois looked over at her quizzically before turning her attention to the album. First she merely looked at the first of the two pictures on the page, then she narrowed her eyes and leaned forward.

"Oh my god," she whispered. "That's Sam… with hair!"

Martha laughed. "Yes, that is your father with hair. You didn't think he was always bald, did you?"

Still in mild shock, Lois slid the book fully on her lap while gazing at the picture. "I don't know. I guess I didn't, but there was never any evidence to prove otherwise," she answered with a smile pulling at her lips.

Shaking her head, Lois took in the other person in the photo. "Who is this?"

"My husband, Jonathan," Martha replied, unconsciously lifting a hand to smooth down a stray lock of Lois's hair. "We all met during college."

"You all?" Lois questioned, seeing that the second picture was also of the two men before flipping the page. Her thoughts stuttered to a halt when the pictures on the next page revealed to her just who 'all' was. "You knew my mom?"

"She was my roommate," Martha answered in a wistful tone. "Freshman year, there I was headed to business school and some housing mixup ends up with my assigned roommate being a music major."

Lois just blinked at the information and continued to look through the photos. Two young women—one with blonde hair and one with auburn hair—standing arm-in-arm and smiling as if the weather man never predicted rainy days.

"We were totally different, but I think that's what made it last, oddly enough," Martha continued, watching Lois run her fingers lightly over one picture after another. "We weren't roommates after that year, but we remained friends. It wasn't until junior year that your dad became a prominent figure in the group."

Lois looked up at her, not really understanding what that meant.

"Your father was in the business school too. We had a couple of classes together here and there, but it wasn't until we started the MBA fast-track program that we actually met. For the next three years, we were in the same cohort, so same classes, occasional group projects… you know."

When Lois's eyes narrowed slightly, Martha laughed and shook her head. "No, no. By that time I was already engaged to Jonathan," she explained. "High-school sweethearts. But eventually, all those group meetings led to Sam meeting Ellen."

She pointed at a picture that showed Sam posing with a possessive arm wrapped around Lois's mother's shoulders as he stood behind her. "I think that they had known each other a week when he decided that the music industry was going to be his focus."

Lois paused as some straggling pieces of information started to mesh in her mind. "You have an MBA?" she asked, frowning at the image of a business woman in a power suit and pumps working on a farm.

"Yes, I do."

"Oh," Lois answered. She was getting better at the whole 'think before you speak' thing… "Congratulations." ...No one said she had mastered it.

Martha's eyebrows raised in amusement at the comment. "Thank you."

Focusing back on the book, Lois turned the page to see older versions of her parents.

"After college, we went our separate ways a bit, but they came out once and spent some down time at the farm a few years before…" She trailed off and returned to stroking Lois's hair.

Knowing what was being left unsaid, Lois released a short breath and turned the page, gasping in surprise when she saw a picture of herself. In a group shot, an around two-year-old version of herself was being held in the arms of her mother, while flanked on the sides by her father and Martha and Jonathan Kent.

Arching an eyebrow, she addressed what was missing. "Where's Clark? He's not taking the picture, is he?"

"No," Martha said with a smile. "We didn't have him yet." At Lois's confused expression, she went on, "We adopted Clark when he was three."

"Huh." Lois said, looking back to the pictures. She turned another page and found a black-and-white photo of her mother sitting at a piano on a small intimate stage, gazing out at her audience as if she were experiencing pure joy. It was an image that Lois was quite familiar with. Gracing many a tribute cover, it was usually shown with the addition of two years and a dash; a short line that was supposed to mark a journey's beginning and end.

Her dad had an enlarged copy of it hanging in the 'trophy' room. Seeing it here was bittersweet.

"Your mother was an incredible singer," Martha said quietly. "She loved performing and music to her was like a red-blooded person, but she would have hated the way that your life is public fodder once you become famous today."

Lois startled at the words and replayed them in her head. _My life?_ she silently questioned. That first day when she'd met Martha at the cottage, the woman had claimed to know everything. Could 'everything' include the little known fact that Lois Lane and Lola Dakota were really one and the same?

Straightening in her seat, Lois turned her head to look Martha in the eye. "You know, don't you," she said, more statement than question.

Martha merely favored her with a soft smile and tilted her head before responding. "Know what, Dear?"

~\s/~

Clark Kent didn't like mysteries.

Well, he didn't like unsolved ones at least. He was an avid reader; desiring to know everything he could about the things that existed in his world. When at age 15, you start exhibiting strange powers and are told that you were found in a spaceship, you tend to want to understand the universe. When at 18, you learn that your 'home planet' was destroyed and you are the only one left, you tend not to welcome surprises.

So Clark didn't like not knowing exactly what was going to happen. When he was a kid, he used to read the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' stories backwards.

He liked to think that he was just an outcome kind of guy. His mom seemed to think that it was a trait that made him afraid of the world. Oh, she didn't say it like that, but he swore that sometimes he could hear her think it. He wasn't afraid of the world—he just didn't like it when things were out of his control or unpredictable.

The farm was definitely one place where he knew how things were going to happen. Harvest came after sowing; spring came after winter. There was a natural rhythm to his life, and he was comfortable with that.

But the addition of Lois Lane to the farm had upset the dynamics and upset the flow. He was upset that just when he had gotten her pegged, she'd changed. He didn't like that he'd been thinking about it all morning, and he didn't like it that his mother seemed oblivious. A few hours after lunch, he'd gone to the cottage to finally confront Lois and get to the bottom of it. He refused to be intrigued.

"Lois?" he called, knocking on the door to the cottage. "I want to ask you something." When no answer came, he hopped off of the porch and walked around to the side. Mindful of his promise to his mother that he wouldn't use his special hearing or vision to eavesdrop on their guest, he peeked through the open window and frowned when he saw that no one was there.

Moving back to the front of the house, Clark looked around with suspicious eyes. His mom's truck was parked in its usual spot next to the barn and nothing else seemed out of place, but he wouldn't put it past her to hijack the tractor.

A quick use of his ability to see through walls disconfirmed that theory.

He continued to look around the grounds, convinced that Lois Lane was up to no good. She'd complained so much about her feet the last time she'd snuck off to town that he could say with confidence that she wouldn't do that again. Without transportation, Princess Lane had to still be near. The fact that she was nearby but quiet left him unsettled. For all he knew, she could be setting up a Meth lab in the cellar—he'd heard those things were happening more and more in the city.

Narrowing his eyes as he scanned for anything out of the ordinary, he started walking again when he noticed the farm's rooster pacing near the fence on the eastern border of the property. The only things beyond that fence were some untamed woods and he'd never seen the rooster go out that far.

"What are you doing way out here?" he asked, addressing the rooster when he arrived at the fence. While he wasn't expecting a response, he was quite surprised when the cock lifted its wings and crest and began to attack him.

"Hey!" he shouted, dodging the animal's thrusting beak. "Don't make me hurt you!" He finally escaped the flurry of feathers when he hoisted himself over the wooden cross beams. Given the rooster's presence—and apparent guard dog personality—he now had an idea of where Lois could be.

He quietly approached the tree that held his childhood hideaway; a tree house that he and his father had built one summer when he was ten.

Approaching the large tree that held the wooden structure, he was about to yell to get her attention when he heard something strange.

She was singing.

Well, it was mostly singing—there was some humming mixed in, and she wasn't really singing full verses—accompanied by chords from a guitar.

"I don't know what…" Clark heard her sing as a chord sounded. Then came another. "I don't know what I'm feeling… No, hmmm."

It sounded to him as if she were either trying to remember a song or create one. Either way, it sounded really… good.

He stood there motionless for another twenty minutes listening to the sounds before his enrapture was disturbed by a squawk.

Looking down, he saw that the rooster had followed him.

"Erruarrk!"

Briefly glancing up at the tree house before looking back at his attacker, Clark moved closer the tree so he wouldn't be easily seen by anyone inside the fort. "Shh," he admonished to the bird that continued to flap and caw at him.

"Erruarrrrrk!"

As a result of the commotion, the sounds of the guitar that were coming from above trailed away. "What the heck?" came Lois's voice.

Clark lifted his leg and shoo'd the rooster away with his foot. "Shh!" he tried again. He glanced up in time to see a shadow approach the entryway. Moving quickly, he stepped clear of the structure on the back side and jumped up.

When Lois leaned out the open space that served as a door, Clark was safely hidden from view, watching from where he was perched on a thick branch above her.

"Rosco? How in the world did you get out here?" Lois asked, peering down at the ground. "I swear I'm going to have to get a restraining order if you can't honor our agreement on boundaries," she teased.

Chuckling and sitting down so her legs could hang over the side of the platform, she reached behind her and pulled a guitar into her lap. "Well, since you're here, maybe you can help me with something."

Clark watched as Lois situated her fingers on the instrument and strummed a chord progression.

"The idea is this," she said over the strumming, "I want to get kind of a slow soulful intro, you know?"

"Rwrak."

"Exactly!" Lois replied, and Clark had to fight the urge to smile. "But the lyrics don't feel right yet, so bear with my humming," she added.

She continued, "Do, do, do do do, do do…"

"Rwrak-eurrak!"

"Yeah, you're right… that does make it sound like Elmo's song." Then she shrugged. "What the heck, I like that song. Let's jam!"

Somehow, the tempo of the song matched the neck thrusts of the rooster on the ground below, and if Clark didn't know better, he'd have thought the blasted bird was dancing.

"This is the song, La, La, La La, Rosco's song. La, La, La La. La, La, La La, Rosco's song…"

Sitting in the tree and watching Lois play a Sesame Street tune to a strutting chicken, Clark wasn't sure what to make of it all. Lois had become more of a mystery to him than before.

And to make matters worse, he was already half in love with her voice.

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	8. Chapter 8

[-8-]

A few days later, Clark realized that 'half in awe' had been added to that description.

It had become his practice to sneak around Rosco, the squawking gatekeeper, in order to listen to Lois's mini-concert every afternoon. He'd become distracted with trying to figure her out.

She definitely wasn't as aloof as when she first arrived to the farm, but she also wasn't as distracted as she had been a few days ago. It was all added fodder for the mental notebook he'd been using to keep tabs on her behavior. As of yet, none of it added up. She still seemed to be in a hurry to finish work, but now that he knew why she wanted to rush off to do her own thing, so was he.

…Well, he was in a hurry to rush off to see her do her own thing, that is.

Clark had been trying to think of ways to approach the topic of singing in conversation but hadn't been able to do so innocently. At one point, he had considered speaking about the fact that Lois could sing to his mother, but had stopped himself. For some reason, he wasn't ready to share that hidden part of Lois's personality with others until he'd gained more insight.

Did Chloe know that her cousin could sing?

Why wasn't Lois on a record label like Chloe was?

How could he get the answers to these questions without revealing that he'd been spying?

It was thoughts like those ones mixed in with the desires to finish chores quickly that had led to an unfortunate incident with a manure sprayer. Sure, his quick reactions had gotten him out of the way in time that he wasn't covered, but his involvement in the cleanup meant that he still smelled the part. So now, knowing that there was no way he could remain hidden for the concert when his odor preceded him like a visible person, he headed into the house for a quick shower.

Still mulling over thoughts of melodies, chords and unanswered questions, Clark didn't realize that the bathroom door was closed…

…Until he walked in and saw Lois in the tub.

Two pairs of shock widened eyes met before Clark tilted his neck back to concentrate on the ceiling.

"Uh, sorry, I… didn't know you were…" "Your mom said it would be okay…" Their words tripped over each other's.

Closing his mouth, Clark nodded, indicating that she should go first.

"Your mom said it would be okay," Lois repeated, "since there's only a shower in the guest house."

Clark nodded again, silently ruing the fact that his mom had gone into town that day. If she had been at home, she would have been able to tell him that Lois was in the bathroom, saving him from this _extremely_ awkward moment. "No, no," he said, clearing his throat. "Of course you should use the bathroom… could use the bathroom, I mean… it's fine." He nodded again and let out a breath.

A silent thirty seconds passed before Lois spoke again. "Clark?"

"Yeah?"

"You can leave now…"

"Oh! Right," he answered, still looking up. "I was leaving. I am leaving." He began walking backwards only to have his progress hindered when his shoulder hit the wall instead of open space. Taking a slight step to his right, he blindly reached for the door handle. "Still leaving."

"Okay," Lois replied.

Clark nodded again—had he even stopped nodding? "Okay." And with that, he darted out of the room.

~\s/~

At dinner, Clark was feeling a little antsy. After the unexpected confrontation with Lois earlier that afternoon, he hadn't dared to follow her out to the tree house. To her credit, Lois didn't seem fazed by it and chatted with his mother as if nothing had happened. It reminded him of the way she'd acted when they'd first met. It was as if his intrusion on her privacy wasn't a big deal.

Clark mentally sighed as he rubbed his jaw. Maybe it wasn't a big deal after all.

"Aren't you going to have dessert, Honey?" Martha asked when he pushed away from the table.

Pulled from his distraction, Clark blinked and turned to his mother. "What? Oh, uh, maybe later," he replied, smiling at the apple pie she was slicing. "I'm just going to go close down the barn."

"Okay…" his mother said, frowning.

Clark paused just as he reached the kitchen door and turned around. "Uh, Lois, would you like to go into town tonight?"

Apparently surprised by the invitation, Lois's eyebrows arched on her forehead, "Into town?"

"Yeah, a couple of my friends from high school are back for the summer and I figured you might like to see what we do for fun around here."

Lois grinned widely. "Fun? Are you going cow tipping?"

Fighting the urge to smirk, Clark just shook his head. "You'll have to see for yourself." It came out like a challenge.

Tilting her head, Lois narrowed her eyes. "Okay, Farm Boy. I'm down."

"Good. We'll leave at eight," he announced before turning and walking out onto the porch.

He purposely avoided looking at his mother on the way out.

~\s/~

Lois chuckled as Clark parked the truck in a small parking lot next to a café. She couldn't say that she'd ever partied at a coffee shop before, but she reminded herself that she was in a small town. When in Rome… drink macchiato.

Besides, she was still a little on edge around Mrs. Kent. It felt like the woman knew more than she was saying, but Lois didn't know how to bring up the Lola connection without exposing herself… if she didn't already know. All of the first and second guessing made her look forward to a night away from the paranoia.

She hopped out of the vehicle when Clark opened his door and waited for him to join her at the front. "Coffee?" she asked as he pulled open the door to let her in.

"Not exactly," Clark answered.

She was immediately hit with the sounds of music and the flashing of strobe lights. Now fully laughing, she shook her head and continued inside. "Karaoke Night?" she read aloud from the chalkboard stand. "Seriously?"

Clark grimaced a little. "We kind of have to do things that are appropriate for all ages in Smallville," he explained, referring to the abundance of high school aged patrons in the crowd. "Either that or we could saddle up at Custer's Last Stand with the over fifties…" he offered.

"And discuss corn futures?" Lois cringed. "No thanks."

Clark smirked. "Well, you complained about it being all work and no play here, and I thought this would be…" He shrugged.

"Fun?" Lois helpfully supplied, amused.

"Yeah."

Lois took a moment to study his profile as he looked around the darkened room. She didn't know if it was one of those clichéd "all in due time" things, but it appeared that his initial frosty attitude toward her had thawed. Then again, she thought with a mental shrug, she'd been on the farm for a little over three weeks now. Maybe he was like her and just trying to get through the ordeal without spilling blood.

She turned her attention to her surroundings, taking in the Egyptian themed décor that lay under the signs and streamers that were obviously only there for that night. The coffee shop—The Talon, she remembered from the awning outside—had been converted from some other type of business at some point, judging from the structure. She idly wondered what it was when she noticed Clark lifting his hand and waving to someone.

"Clark Kent!" a female voice called out, and Lois turned her head to seek out its owner. Before she could get a good look, though, a blur of pastel colors launched into Clark's arms.

When the petite dark-haired young woman about their age pulled back, Lois got a good look at her shirt. Who knew plaid came in pink?

Clark turned to Lois, "This is…" he started.

"I'm Lana," the girl replied, thrusting a hand out. "And you are Lois."

Lois nodded, glanced quickly at Clark, and reached out to complete the handshake. "Yeah, I…"

"Are best friends with Lola Dakota," Lana continued, once again jumping in. "Clark told me. That is amazing!" Lana turned to Clark, "Isn't that amazing?" Then back to Lois, "Amazing!" Then she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. "I absolutely love her music." She grinned. "I'm sorry, I'm gushing, I know, but this is like the closest thing we've had to celebrity in this town… okay, well, not the closest, come to think of it. Chloe Sullivan is from here. Did you know that?"

Lois arched an eyebrow. "Well, actually…"

Lana slapped her arm playfully. "What am I saying? I'm sure you knew that already. She and Lola are on the same label after all. Anyway, Chloe's from here but we didn't really travel in the same circles before she left and made it big, so I don't really _know_ her, know her, you know what I mean?"

Lois nodded warily, not knowing if she should even attempt at getting out a full sentence around this girl.

Lana's excitement seemed to only build. "You have to know that if I hadn't just gotten into town yesterday, I would have so come out to the farm to ask you a million questions, because I have, like, a _million_ questions. Like, how did you meet? Did you grow up together?" Still without giving time for an answer, she pressed on. "I don't believe the stuff the tabloids say about her, but is any of it true? You don't have to answer that… Unless you want to…"

Lois raised an eyebrow and Lana nodded, adding, "Yeah, maybe later."

Clark took the opportunity to interrupt. "Lana, where's Pete?"

"Pete!" Lana exclaimed, as if just remembering. "He got us a booth. Come on!" She grabbed Lois's hand and began pulling her through the crowd.

Lois glanced over her shoulder to see Clark following behind them. Catching her eye, he shrugged sheepishly.

When they arrived at the booth, a stocky young man of average height stood to greet them. After exchanging a man-hug-thing with Clark, he shook Lois's hand with a "Pete Ross" introduction and settled back down into his seat. Lois noted that he put his arm along the back of the seat when Lana slid in next to him.

"So, this is the love of Johnnie's life," Pete teased when Lois and Clark were seated across from him.

"What?" Clark asked.

Lois peered at him, "You mean Johnnie Walker?"

Pete laughed and nodded.

"Johnnie's best friends with Pete's kid brother, Jack," Lana explained. "He's going to be mad when he hears that he missed you."

Lois smiled. "He's a cutie."

"I'll make sure _not_ to tell him you said that," Pete answered, making them all laugh.

After a server came by the table and took their drink orders, Clark cleared his throat. "Lois, are you going to sing?"

Lois felt herself freeze and let out a nervous laugh in an attempt to cover it. "Oh no, Lois Lane does not sing." She thought that she caught a confused expression on Clark's face at her reply, but it was gone so quickly that she wasn't sure. She chocked it up to the 'third person speak' that always irked Chloe, but didn't make an attempt to correct it. She figured that if she didn't draw any attention to it, neither would anyone else.

"Oh, come on, Lois," Lana entered. "Hey, I know! You can sing a LoDa song!"

Lois shook her head. "Believe me; nothing good could come of that."

"It's Karaoke Night. You don't even have to worry about sounding bad," Pete offered.

Lois just continued to shake her head, pausing only to thank their server as the drinks arrived.

"Will you go up there if I do it first?" Clark asked.

Lois turned to see if indeed he had grown another head. "There is _no way_ you would go up there," she told him.

Without replying, Clark stood up and walked toward the crowd of people standing around the DJ booth.

"Oh, man, I've gotta see this," Pete said, jumping up to follow.

Lois looked across the table where she saw that Lana was watching the two retreating figures but not speaking. According to Lois's short acquaintance with the woman, that was uncharacteristic.

"Well… wow," Lana finally uttered, turning her head to face Lois.

Lois frowned. "He won't do it. That rod is planted too deeply…" she trailed off, remembering her company. "I mean…"

Lana chuckled, "No, I know exactly what you mean. It's just, for a minute there, I was reminded of sophomore year Clark."

"What was sophomore year?"

"That's when we dated," Lana answered nonchalantly.

Lois had to sit back at that announcement. She looked at the peppy and perky woman before her and tried to reconcile the mental image of a younger version of Lana dating Clark 'The Stick' Kent. "You two?" she asked with a confused squint. "Really?" It just didn't compute.

Lana grinned. "Granted, it lasted for like five minutes, but yeah. He wasn't so," she made a vague gesture with her hands, "Clark-like then," she finished. "Before his dad—you know about his dad, right?"

Lois nodded grimly. She had reconciled Martha's words about her late husband with the headstone she'd seen in the cemetery.

"Clark and his dad were really close," Lana continued. "After that, he just… shut down. His plans to be a lawyer, travel the world… He just," she gave a one-shouldered shrug as she tapped the rim of her mug, "gave up."

Not liking the depressed atmosphere that had descended upon them—but tucking the information away in her mind for later—Lois redirected the subject a bit. "Why only five minutes?" she asked, smirking.

Lana's eyes twinkled as she met Lois's. "He was the star quarterback, I was a cheerleader," she explained wryly, noting the obvious cliché, "but Clark never did anything over five minutes."

Lois's eyebrows rose.

"Meaning," Lana said, catching the look, "he didn't do serious. Clark was just the guy that was everyone's friend. He'd hang out, he'd date, but usually that was it."

Lois laughed. "Are you saying that he was a player?"

Lana's expression turned thoughtful. "He was a _football_ player, Lois," she deadpanned. Then she started laughing at Lois's expression. "No, nothing like that. He just was really carefree. I miss that about him."

Pete returned to the table at the moment. "You are not going to believe this," he started. "The waiting list was already long so Clark bribed a girl to let him have her spot. He's up next."

Both Lois and Lana exchanged surprised glances. "He's really going to do it?" Lana asked.

Pete shook his head; in wonder at the situation himself. "Apparently."

They all shifted in their seats and faced the stage when the DJ announced the next singer.

When the music began, Lois's jaw dropped. "No. Way."

Lana just dropped her head onto Pete's shoulder and started laughing.

On stage, Clark lifted the microphone and his voice came out in a high pitched squeak, "I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want…"

Lois grimaced. "That is horrible," she said covering her eyes in empathetic embarrassment. "And I don't mean the song."

"Yeah, well, the song was already cued, so when Clark bribed the girl for her spot, he had to take her choice too," Pete added with a bark of laughter. "And the song is the part I didn't think you would believe."

After his song, Clark accepted the jeers and cheers of people he passed in the crowd as he made his way back to their table. He smiled at the laughing couple that awaited him but frowned when he took in the way Lois was looking at him studiously. "What?"

Her brow creased even more as her eyes narrowed. "What do you think, Lana?" she asked, ignoring his question. "Pepper? Basil?"

"Alfalfa?" Lana offered.

Lois turned and pointed at her. "Alfalfa! I like that!"

Clark turned a confused expression to Pete. "Huh?"

Lois answered, "I'm just trying to figure out what your Spice Girl name is. Alfalfa Spice, welcome to the band."

Clark glared as they all broke into laughter again. "Alfalfa is a sprout not a spice," he said, looking down at them as he remained standing next to the booth.

Lois shrugged. "It's also a Little Rascal. Hey, Baby and Sporty aren't spices either, but they made it."

He shook his head and changed the subject. "Your turn, Lois. I held up my part of the deal."

Lois scoffed. "I never agreed to that."

"But the deal was if I went up…"

Lois shook her head and interrupted. "Nooo, I said you wouldn't do it, _after _I said that _I_ wouldn't do it. You went up and committed that atrocity on your own merit, kid."

"That's not true," Clark countered. He turned to Pete for backup. "Pete?" When his friend just lifted his hands and pursed his lips, Clark tried again. "Lana?"

Flicking a quick glance to Lois, Lana bit her lip and pushed Pete's shoulder. "Come on, babe, let's go look at the song list."

Frowning as his friends bailed on him, he turned back to Lois. "I never took you as one to back down from a challenge," he accused.

Lois was unfazed. "It's not called backing down if there was never a challenge in the first place."

Clark let out a frustrated breath and gestured over his shoulder. "Did you see what I just did?"

"Saw it, heard it… laughed at it. Heartily."

Clark narrowed his eyes, sensing defeat. She didn't want to sing—though for the life of him he didn't see why not—and she wasn't going to give in to his attempts to get her up there. He obviously needed to take a different approach. "Okay, I'm making it a challenge now. Dance with me."

Lois did a double take. "What? Dance with you? It's karaoke, Kent. People don't _dance_ to karaoke." She gestured around at the non-dancing patrons to emphasize her point.

Clark shrugged. "My challenge, my rules. Either you dance or you sing. Choose your poison." He smirked as he waited for her to answer, confident that he had her cornered.

She looked at him silently while her working her jaw. Finally, she tilted her head and matched his smirk. "Fine," she said, scooting toward the end of the booth. "Help me up."

Nodding, Clark held out his had to comply, but as he started to guide her in the direction of the stage, she pulled him the other way.

"We're dancing," she announced smarmily when he turned to question her.

At the announcement his eyes widened. That wasn't the choice he was counting on. His body and fast music always seemed at odds… and looking at Lois's expression, she appeared to be expecting that. Just as he was trying to come up with an excuse, the music changed to something slow and he sighed in relief.

Lois looked disappointed, but turned and placed her other hand on his shoulder anyway.

When her expression changed, Clark ducked his head to catch her eye. "What?"

She blinked and tilted her head to look up at him. "The song," she said. "It's one of… Chloe's."

Clark smiled. "Yeah, well, you'll probably hear at least one full CD of hers tonight. She's somewhat of a hometown hero." He listened for a minute. "This is one of my favorites…" Just then the person singing hit a sour note and they both winced. "Was one of my favorites," he amended.

They looked at each other and laughed.

Lois shook her head. "So, you and Cheery Spice dated?"

Clark shrugged, knowing that she was referring to Lana. "High school," he said, as if that explained it all.

"I need a time machine or something, because that just doesn't fit."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

Lois's face scrunched. "She's just so friendly, and you're… not."

Clark stopped swaying and protested, "I'm friendly."

Lois arched an eyebrow. "You threw my bags in the dirt."

"They're _suitcases_ and I just set them down. You make it sound like I dropped them from a helicopter."

Lois kinked her jaw to the side. "And it was nice to meet you too."

He shrugged. "Maybe I didn't care too much for that Lois."

"That Lois?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered, starting to move to the music again, "the one who wore bedazzled jeans to milk cows."

She narrowed her eyes, and challenged, "As opposed to this Lois who…"

Clark opened his mouth to reply but hesitated when he realized that he couldn't say what he wanted to. "As opposed to the one who doesn't wear bedazzled jeans to milk cows?" he sheepishly offered instead.

"Whatever."

"Hey, I could have let your whole Smallville experience be chores," he countered. "That was friendly." At her look, he continued. "And you met Lana. I thought you'd be happy to finally meet someone who shares your taste in popstars and… stuff."

"You're trying to be nice?" Lois then stepped away from him and put her hands on her hips. "Why are you trying to be nice?"

Clark couldn't help but look away.

"Are you flirting with me, Kent?" She smiled and stepped to the side so she was back in his line of view. "You are! You are totally small town flirting with me!" Her expression turned thoughtful. "It's because you saw me naked, isn't it?"

Clark's eyes popped. "What? No! I didn't see… anything!"

Lois nodded sagely. "Yep. You saw the bod and _now _you want to be 'friendly.' That totally explains why you went from cold shoulder to best buds in one afternoon," she teased.

He pulled at his collar, knowing that he couldn't really tell her that it wasn't just one afternoon that had turned his mind around. "All I saw were suds," he countered. "Mounds and moun…"

"Mounds?" Lois questioned, interrupting him.

"I mean lots," he corrected. "Lots and lots of suds. That's all."

Lois smirked and looked up at him with obviously false pique. "Don't fall for me, Kent. I am _way_ out of your league."

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	9. Chapter 9

[-9-]

Walking with her thumbs interlocked through the belt loops of the jeans she wore, Lois smiled as she sidestepped two little boys that were chasing each other through the market stalls.

As she walked through the Lowell County Farmers Market, Lois couldn't help but think to herself that it was nothing like The Grove in Los Angeles. Hollywood's version of a farmer's market was like anything else that went through the Hollywood machine. It was big, it was loud, it was over-the-top, and it was often used as a vehicle for celebs to get their pictures taken.

The market she was at today, on the other hand, was quaint and quiet. The vendors were polite as a rule—not because they were counting on you buying something, but because they just were happy to be out in the open exchanging wares and conversations with their neighbors. In fact, Lois hadn't purchased anything yet, and had already tasted more samples than she'd ever received in an Awards Ceremony swag bag.

As she smiled and nodded at the grandfatherly-looking man running an odd-and-ends booth, she realized that she was getting fond of the slow-plow pace of this town. Here, she didn't have to worry about the paparazzi jumping out from behind trees or sighting her with the help of telephoto lenses. She didn't have to fight crowds to go in and out of stores and she didn't have to worry about cameras being hidden in sewers by creepy voyeur photogs looking to score 'undercover' shots.

She could really learn to handle a place like this… in small doses, of course. Smallville was proving to be a place where she could let her hair down and relax in her skin. She had even let her sunglasses rest on top of her head instead of hiding her eyes as usual. Here, she wasn't Lola Dakota… hell, here she wasn't even Lois Lane. She was just the young woman that was staying at the Kent Farm for a few weeks. It was obvious that people were curious, but first and foremost, they were polite. So, even though they wanted to know more, they didn't push.

Lois was enjoying her anonymity—perhaps for the first time in her life. Her dad had mentioned something about 'gaining perspective' when he had unceremoniously dropped her at the corner of Nowhere and Vine, and she was starting to think that this qualified. She was finally understanding what Lola Dakota was all about. _This_-this ability to walk around without people fawning, falling and fanfaring—was why Lola existed. Before arriving at the Kent Farm, Lois had been seriously considering giving up the dual identities and just being Lola forever, but now she could see that Lois wasn't possible without Lola—and vice versa.

One of them was a caricature and the other was flesh and blood, but Lois couldn't have one without the other.

It was because Lola Dakota was so larger-than-life that Lois Lane could walk around and smile at strangers. Smiling was something she could do because when the people here smiled back, she could rest assured that it wasn't because they wanted something from her—it was because they didn't.

Maybe what it all boiled down to was that Lois Lane was who she was (or who she was learning to be) and Lola Dakota was what she could do.

Whatever the case was, she knew that she couldn't allow herself to get too comfortable in her new-slash-old skin because it would only take one false move for Jiminez Olsen and his ilk to descend upon this town like a plague of locusts. She needed to be careful… and she needed to avoid risky situations like last night's karaoke fest.

"I've got everything loaded in the truck."

The sound of Clark's voice coming from beside her pulled Lois from her thoughts. "What?"

"The truck," he repeated. "It's all loaded up."

Lois blinked up at him, squinting in the sunlight. "Oh, I guess we should go, then."

He shook his head. "No. I mean, we can walk around a bit more. If you want to, that is.

"But the stuff is just sitting in the bed of the truck," she countered in concern.

"It's safe," he assured with a slight smile. "It's Smallville.

Lois looked at him for a few silent seconds more before nodding and starting to walk again. She bit her lower lip unconsciously as she considered the young man walking beside her. He appeared somewhat restless and the change in behavior made her a little wary. She had teased him about the bathtub incident, but now she was wondering if it was a bigger deal than she had thought.

The fact that he'd accidently barged in on her 'tub time' had been comical at the most. She'd been covered by suds, (Mounds of them, she thought to herself with a smirk) so she hadn't been overly concerned—the bikinis she'd worn on magazine cover photo shoots showed more than he could have possibly seen—but now that he was acting differently around her, she realized that those reactions fit Lola, not Lois. As Lois, she probably should have dove for a towel or at least not treated the encounter so lightly. The last thing she needed to do was draw any extra attention.

They continued to walk through the market and Lois ignored the continuous number of non-essential facts that Clark verbalized as they passed the different stands. Against her will, she'd learned that Mitchell, South Dakota was home to a Corn Palace, that coconut water could be used as a substitute for blood plasma in an emergency, and that peanut oil could be used to make dynamite. Finally, a comment that he supplied while she was studying the label on Mrs. Boatwright's Homemade Honey caused her to glare at him in exasperation.

"It's true," he said with a shrug. "It's called Mellified Man."

"And how exactly do you know about dead people being steeped in honey?" Lois asked, setting the jar back on the display.

"It was in a book on cadavers." When Lois frowned, he added, "Hey, it was on the New York Times bestseller's list. You should read it." He paused. "Wait, you do read, don't you?"

Lois shifted her jaw and turned away from him. He caught up with her at the Talon's mini-concession stand. When Lois lifted a bag of dark roast beans to her nose, Clark smirked.

"Did you know that the most expensive coffee beans in the world come from poop?"

Trying valiantly to go back to ignoring him, Lois placed the bag she held back on the table before picking up another blend.

"Kopi Luwak beans," Clark continued, undaunted. "The partially-digested beans are harvested from civet spore."

"Okay! Enough!" Lois abandoned her facade and spun to face him. "Why are you torturing me?"

"Torturing?" Clark asked innocently. "I was just trying to impress you with my wealth of knowledge."

Hearing the mocking edge to his tone, Lois narrowed her eyes.

"How does it feel?" Clark asked smugly.

"How does what feel?"

He shrugged. "Well, I'm guessing that you're about as interested in the wide world of foods as I am in the comings and goings of the Hiltons, Hamptons and Hudsons."

Lois crossed her arms over her chest. "So you _were_ listening to me," she challenged.

"Not the point," he replied, mimicking her posture.

Seeing his smirk, Lois let her shoulders droop. He was flirting again. "Clark," she sighed. "I thought we talked about this last night…"

His eyebrows rose. "You told me not to fall for you. Believe me, that's not going to happen."

Surprisingly offended, Lois was about to respond when he continued, "I'm just giving you a taste of your own medicine. Besides, you're the one who needs to beware of falling for me."

Lois almost doubled over when she burst out laughing at that. "Oh really?" she was finally able to ask.

For his part, Clark seemed to take her outburst in stride. "Umhmm. See, I started thinking about what you said last night…" He paused, gave her a serious look, and said, "…the small town flirting thing, in case you thought something else." Then the smirk was back. "And the way I see it, you're a city girl, so you're probably used to slick-haired guys giving you bad pick-up lines and buying you drinks in bars."

Lois's laughter tampered down to a chuckle as she found herself wondering where he was going with all of this.

He went on, "So it makes sense that you were confused…"—Lois arched an eyebrow at that—"…in thinking that my being nice to you was the equivalent of flirting in a small town. But it isn't."

"It isn't," Lois repeated warily, still not sure where the conversation was heading.

"No, it isn't. But I'm going to show you what it is."

Lois frowned. "It? As in…"

"Flirting," Clark answered nonchalantly. "Smallville style."

Lois lifted a hand to cover her mouth, but it did nothing to hide the wide smile that barely kept her hysterics at bay. She couldn't understand how he could say any of this with a straight face. She drew in a breath and cleared her throat. "And, um, what makes you think that _I_ am in any danger of being…" she searched her mind for an appropriate word, "…vulnerable to your charms?"

"Well, you tried to flirt with me when you first got here, so I figure…" he trailed off and shrugged, tucking his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looking all too self-satisfied for Lois's liking.

Lois stopped laughing and studied his expression. "You figure, what?"

Clark's small smile morphed into a wide grin. He seemed to like putting her on the ropes. "That you think I'm cute."

Lois felt any vestiges of her humorous demeanor drop. "Correction," she countered wryly. "I _used_ to think you were cute." She felt her own measure of self-satisfaction when his brow furrowed in confused rejection.

What she didn't tell him—and what she wouldn't tell him even under threat of death—was that cute was something associated with little kids and puppies, and though she hated the admission… Lois was starting to see Clark Kent as grown-man attractive.

And that, she thought as she turned on her heel and stalked toward the truck, was going to make her life a lot more complicated—something she hadn't even thought was possible.

~\s/~

Clark massaged the back of his neck with his right hand as he waited. After his karaoke plan had failed, he'd realized that he needed to try a different approach to getting Lois to open up about her music. Finding out why she wouldn't sing in public had become somewhat of a secret obsession of his. Either she didn't think that she had a voice—which was totally wrong—or she was shy—which was totally out of character.

The whole flirting thing had been a spur of the moment idea that had come to him when he was loading the truck. It had occurred to him that the only way to get Lois to not knock him off of his game was to knock her off of hers first. He had to keep her off kilter, and turning her tricks back on her seemed to be a good way to do it. So far she'd either ignored his attempts or shot them down, but he was perseverant if nothing else.

He shifted the items he was holding and stepped to the door to knock again. "Lois, I'm still here," he called through the cottage's door. "You know, ignoring me doesn't give the impression that you're unaffected, it just makes it seem like you're afr…"

The sudden movement of the door swinging open cut off his words. "What do you want?" Lois demanded.

Clark took in her angry glare, white tank top and old jeans and smiled. "These are for you," he said lifting his hand.

"What are those?" Lois asked, not moving to accept.

"They're flowers, Lois," he answered, shaking his head. "Hasn't a guy given you flowers before?"

She looked at him for a moment before taking the offered items with a noncommittal grunt. "Thanks."

"Want to take a walk?"

"Why?"

Clark laughed. "Because that's what people do. They walk and they talk." He lifted his hand and left it palm upward as an invitation.

After looking from his face to his hand a couple of times, she tilted her head. "Fine." Tossing the flowers into the room behind her, she stepped out of the little house and pulled the door shut behind her. Then, she faced him with a raised brow.

"I had a feeling you'd do that," Clark said with a small sigh, "so I saved one." He pulled his other hand from behind his back to reveal a lone wildflower. See, Lois was doing everything in her power to get him to drop the ruse, and he was doing everything in his power to keep it going. Smiling at her defeated look, he reached up and tucked the flower behind her ear.

"I'm only letting that stay because I have a feeling you've got more hidden on you," she huffed, brushing past him to go down the steps.

"Fair enough," Clark said as he followed.

Lois walked with her arms over her chest and he walked along side her for a few minutes before she finally spoke. "So what happened to the talking part?"

"Oh, right." Clark smirked to himself, having expected her to not be able to take silence for too long. "What's your favorite color?"

She turned her head long enough to frown at him. "I don't have one."

"That's sad," Clark replied. "Mine's blue… but sometimes I like red." He moved so he was in front of her and began walking backwards. "If you had to choose right now, life or death, what color would it be?"

Lois scoffed. "Why would a color be life or death?"

Clark lifted his arms in an elaborate shrug. "Because… you have to cut the wire on a live bomb, I don't know. What would it be? Three seconds."

"Uhhhh…"

"Two seconds… we're all going to die!"

"Um, goldenrod, I guess!"

Nodding, Clark turned so he was walking beside her again. "You couldn't just say yellow?"

"No, because I don't _like_ yellow," she answered, laughing.

"Right, because obviously goldenrod is more golden," he teased. "I don't know what I was thinking!"

Lois felt her guard slip a bit as Clark kept shooting nonsense questions while they walked. When they reached the fence at the end of the drive, he climbed up to sit on the top bar and she ducked under to sit on the bottom rung. They seemed to silently agree to not speak for the next several minutes as the sun slipped past the horizon.

It didn't do any harm to answer his silly questions, and if that and handpicked flowers were the basis for whatever he was trying to prove with this flirting gig, than she wasn't worried.

As if in response to her thoughts, he began asking questions again. "If you could do anything other than…" He paused in thought and looked down at her. "What is it that you do again?"

"You mean, like, in life?"

He nodded. "Yeah. For example, I'm a farmer. And you are…"

Lois considered the question for a few seconds. "I'm a socialite."

"Okay," Clark answered doubtfully. It didn't appear that he considered that to be a profession, and silently, Lois had to agree. "Say you couldn't be a socialite. What would you be?"

Frowning, Lois tried to come up with something far enough in left field that it wouldn't connect to anything real. Surprisingly, she couldn't. Artist was too close to musician, she couldn't even say scientist or accountant with real gusto… "I don't know. Maybe a… " She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I never thought about it."

Clark blinked at her and seemed to think about her answer for a moment. "You wouldn't want to work in the music industry?"

She couldn't help the way her head snapped when she looked up to look at him. "The music industry?"

"Yeah, I mean, with Chloe being a singer and your dad…"

Lois frowned and tilted her head.

"He's a big-time producer right?"

"Did you Google me?" she asked, smirking. He dropped his head a little and she wished it had been lighter outside so she could see if he was blushing. Maybe if she could find out if his flirting wasn't as innocuous as he was saying it was, she could cut him off before the pass. "You did, didn't you?"

He chuckled. "Yeah," he admitted. "But there was surprisingly little out there about you. Come to think of it, you must not be a very successful socialite if the only information that pops up under your name is just stuff about your dad and…" Then he sobered and Lois had a good feeling about what was coming next. "…Your mom," he finished quietly.

Lois studied the ground for a long moment. There was a certain picture that was sure to pop up on any search engine when her name—not Lola's—was entered. Just as iconoclastic as the historic image of little Jon-Jon Kennedy saluting his father, the image showed a small six year-old Lois dropping a large lily into an unseen grave somewhere below her. The contrast between the little girl dressed in white against a backdrop of all black-clad mourners was one that left stark impressions on anyone who viewed it.

Lois barely remembered anything other than scattered images from that day, but that picture was forever burned in her mind.

Clark cleared his throat. "So, you never considered doing music for yourself?" he asked, changing the subject a bit. Lois figured that he didn't want the conversation to turn into a discussion of lost parents, and she agreed. "I mean, music seems like a family affair."

Lois nibbled on her lower lip. "Nah, it's not my thing. What about you?" she asked, shifting a little so she could peer up at him easier. "Why is a star football player who was on his way to being a hotshot lawyer still running the family farm?"

He smiled and looked down at her. "Did you Google me?"

Laughing, Lois repeated the answering line. "There was surprisingly little out there about you. No. I didn't Google you—unless you consider Lana to be the equivalent to an internet search engine."

Clark tilted his head as if to seriously consider that possibility, then smiled. "I think I might regret having introduced the two of you."

"Just remember that it was your doing," Lois quipped back.

"So, really," Clark said, switching subjects again, "you come from a musical family but don't want any part of the business yourself?"

Lois swallowed a sigh. They were back to this again. "Nope," she said in what she hoped sounded like a nonchalant return. "And you never answered my question. Why aren't you a lawyer?"

Clark got quiet and thoughtful and she wondered if she had wandered into forbidden territory. She suddenly put together the information about his dad's death and his change in personality and realized that his loss was a lot fresher than hers.

She was about to tell him that he didn't need to answer when he spoke. "Can I tell you something I haven't ever told anyone else?"

Surprised, Lois shrugged. "Sure."

He sighed. "I never wanted to be a lawyer," he said. "That's just what I told people as a cover."

Lois was intrigued. Living with her own secret, she was often surprised to find out that other people—normal people—had secrets too. "A cover for what?"

"I don't know," he replied, genuinely sounding like he was thinking about it for the first time. "I guess sometimes when you have something you really want, it's easier to keep it under wraps. That way, there's no pressure to make it happen."

Lois stared out at the darkening sky as she pondered the comment. It was strange how those words seemed to resonate with her situation. "So what do you want to be?" she asked, still gazing out in the distance.

He sighed, apparently still a little hesitant to share his revelation even though he'd already intimated that he would. "Not like it's ever going to happen, but I always had a dream of working at The Daily Planet."

"The newspaper?" she asked, stiffening and turning her head to look at him again.

Her discomfort appeared to go unnoticed. "Yes," Clark answered with a wide smile. "It's almost a relief just to say it out loud."

Lois swallowed and forced herself to smile in return.

"What about you? Do you have any secrets?"

Lois felt like her throat was starting to close. "I, uh. I'm…" She licked her lips. This was strangely starting to feel like one of those 'I'll show you mine' type deals.

As if she hadn't already been feeling a little wary about the sanctity of her secret, Clark's Daily Planet revelation had turned her paranoia on its head. Now along with everything else she had to worry about, her life story could become the big break that would make Clark's pipe dream come true. There was no way she could allow that to happen.

"I'm really hungry," she finally admitted.

Clark's expression looked momentarily disappointed before he smiled and jumped down from the fence. "You're right. Come on."

Lois took the hand he held out and let him pull her up. "But your mom's not back yet," she protested as they started waking back toward the house.

"I know. I'm cooking tonight."

Lois paused mid-step. "You can cook?"

Chuckling, Clark turned and faced her, once again walking backwards as he spoke. "There are a lot of things I can do, Lois Lane. A lot of things."

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	10. Chapter 10

**[-10-]**

"Okay, Clark, you win."

Clark turned his head and looked over the wall of the horse stall he was in to see that Lois had entered the building. "What did I win?" he asked lightly, turning his head back to focus on the final horseshoe he was attaching to Blessed, a beautiful mocha and crème colored Palomino.

He heard her sigh in frustration. "You know what you won, Clark. Okay? So let's just stop. It's over."

At that announcement, Clark froze his actions—to the distaste of the mare—and spun his head toward the stables entrance in time to see Lois's ponytail swish as she turned to exit.

"Lois!" Clark called; then feeling panicked, he carefully—but _very _quickly—finished his task and hopped over the gate. Suddenly, he was standing in between Lois and the large open doorway. "Wait," he added—both of them too distracted to even register just how quickly he had moved.

Clark started to lift his hands to put on her shoulders when he realized that his gloves were still on. Hastily pulling them off, he ducked his head to look her in the eye. "What do you mean 'it's over?'" he asked.

Lois sighed again and looked down at the ground. "Clark…"

"No," he interrupted. "You can't just come in here, tell me that I won and then tell me that we're done in the same breath!" he exclaimed, finally settling his hands on the sides of her arms. His voice lowered, "How can we be over when we didn't even really begin?"

Clark watched as Lois bit her lower lip and shot a glance toward the hand on her right shoulder. Fighting the urge to move his hands in response to the look, he let the silence stand and waited for her to answer.

Finally, she let out an uneasy chuckle, "Neither of us were expecting anything to come from this," she began. "I mean… you were out to prove that small-town charm was real and I was out to prove that I wasn't affected by any of it."

Clark remained quiet but he had the impression that her declaration of 'any of it' was about more than just his flirting.

"It doesn't work," she finished, taking a step back to dislodge his hold on her.

Clark frowned. "What doesn't work?" he asked, genuinely confused. "I know that we weren't looking for anything… that this, whatever this is, whatever it could be…"

"See, right there, Clark. Stop. There is no 'could be,'" Lois said, turning sideways and shifting her body away from him.

Clark turned with her and took a step forward. "Tell me why."

Lois stepped backwards again. "What?"

"Tell me why," he repeated, following her retreat. "Why won't you let anyone all the way in?" he demanded, letting a hint of his frustration emerge.

A week of the flirtation duel had passed to unexpected results. Yes, as Lois had said, when the ruse had started, he was out to prove a point and she was out to deny it, but eventually it had become clear that they both enjoyed the company. They had started talking about things that they didn't talk to anyone else about—at least, that's how it was on Clark's end. Since she already knew about the Daily Planet dream, he was able to explain to her why it could never happen.

On Lois's side, she revealed to him the pressure she felt about having to live under the radar so as not to call attention to—or distraction from—her mother's legend. There were still some things that they didn't talk about—she still wouldn't open up to him about her music and he had no intention of unlocking the vault regarding his heritage—but in all other aspects, the ruse had become the rule.

The over-the-top flirtation he had planned had become subdued and genuine. He was really starting to… well, _strongly like_ having her in his space. So much so in fact, that he was beginning to want to keep her there.

"All the way in?" Lois asked, finally halting her steps as her back touched the wall. "Have you?"

Clark faltered as her redirection highlighted the exact thing he had been thinking about. He reconnected his gaze to her eyes. "Do you want to?"

"Do you?"

He let out a groan as it appeared that they were just going to continue the answer-a-question-with-a-question routine. He lifted a hand and placed it on the wall to the side of her head. The next statement was hard for him to even think, much less say, "I want to try."

"Clark…" she started as his outstretched arm bent slightly with his deliberate advance.

"Your turn," he said, still moving forward at an achingly slow pace. "All you have to say is that you want to try too."

He watched as expressions of uncertainty and hesitation flicked across her face. When it started to look like she wasn't going to be able to come up with a decision in the next few seconds, he decided not to wait.

Smirking, he started to lean down and forward only to be interrupted by the sound of his mother calling Lois's name. There they were, standing in a position that was damn close to fruition, and the moment was shot to hell. When he refocused his gaze—still deeply entrenched in her personal space—Lois swallowed and lifted a hand to push against his chest.

"We should go," she commented awkwardly, sidestepping to move out of his almost-embrace. "I should go…"

He grabbed her hand to stop her from leaving. "What were you going to say?" he asked, needing to know.

Without turning around, Lois halted her steps briefly. "I was going to say okay," she answered.

Grinning brightly, Clark released her hand when she tugged it away and started heading toward the house. "Okay?" he repeated to her back, wanting to confirm what he thought—no _hoped_—that meant.

Lois turned to walk backwards for a few steps, looking at him with clear uncertainty in her eyes. "I'm not sure it's a good idea, but yes… We can try."

~\s/~

Still reeling from the emotional almost-encounter with Clark, Lois was not even close to being prepared to see the person sitting at the kitchen table when she entered the farmhouse with the purpose of answering Mrs. Kent's call. "Daddy?"

Her father rose to his feet as he noticed her. "Well, if she's calling me Daddy instead of Sam then the investment has already paid off," he said, addressing Martha, who was sitting on the other side of the table.

Lois blinked a couple of times in rapid succession to clear her mind… or to try to get a hold of it, at least. "What… What are you doing here?"

Sam frowned. "Picking you up," he replied succinctly, using his right hand to tug up the sleeve of his suit jacket so he could glance at his watch. "The plane is waiting and it's wheels up at nineteen hundred hours."

Lois blinked again. "Tonight?"

"Tonight," he confirmed.

Lois turned and looked out of the kitchen window, startled to notice that she had missed the presence of the black Town Car when she'd walked to the house a few minutes ago. "I… ah, you couldn't have called first?" she asked, turning back to face her father again.

"Called?" Sam questioned as if it were a foreign concept, and Lois realized that to him, it was. Samuel Lane planned things and other people carried them out. That was the way he liked his world to work.

"It's just… I haven't packed or… anything," she stammered, catching the sympathetic motherly expression that Martha Kent was wearing over her father's shoulder.

Sam nodded, acknowledging and dismissing her concern in the same gesture. "That's why I gave you an hour."

~\s/~

Lois was in the middle of folding all of her clothes—even the dirty ones—so that everything would fit into her suitcases when someone knocked on the cottage's door. Sighing, she placed the shirt she was folding on the bed and crossed the room. When she opened the door and saw a grinning Clark Kent on the other side, she swung the door open wider and returned to her folding.

With her back turned, she heard Clark enter the room. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I'm leaving," Lois replied in a quiet voice.

"Leaving what?"

Dropping her head, she turned around.

"Leaving?" Clark asked again, obviously confused.

Lois nodded her head toward the still open door. "You see that car out there? That's my dad here to pick me up."

"Your dad, but you said… we…" The confused expression on his face morphed into one of hurt. "So, what? This was some kind of trick?"

"What?" Lois asked, frowning.

"You were getting back at me for flirting?"

"Are you kidding me?"

He spun around and threw his hands in the air. "You knew you were leaving and you let me believe that you actually cared!"

Lois let out an incredulous chuckle. "Unbelievable," she muttered under her breath.

Clark turned back around. "What?"

Sitting down on the bed, she looked up at him and shook her head. "Oh, you want to hear what I have to say now?" When he just crossed his arms over his chest in reply, she continued, "Of course I didn't know he was coming, Clark. But this is exactly why I didn't think we should pursue anything in the first place! There was always going to be a day like this—this is always going to be the outcome—you had to have known that… right?"

Lois released a sigh when Clark's only response was to look away. His naivety was starting to irk her because it made her look like the bad guy. "Tell me something, Clark," she started quietly. "In that scenario of us that you've been cooking up in your head, did it ever go anywhere but here on this farm?"

Her eyes narrowed at his expression, having her answer even in his silence. "It didn't, did it?" she asked, scoffing quietly.

"And what if it didn't?" he suddenly demanded. "What do you have to leave for? What is it that you're rushing back to? Being a socialite that no one knows?" he asked, using his fingers to sarcastically bracket her so-called profession. "How is it so far-fetched for me to believe that you're better off here… with me?"

Lois was quiet for a minute, struggling to figure out how to answer. "Because it's not a matter of choice," she finally said. "The reason you didn't consider anyplace other than this farm is because you _can't_ leave. I mean, isn't that what you've been saying all this time? You can't leave because of this or you can't leave because of that—except I think the truth is that you don't _want_ to leave."

She was expecting his expression to cloud over at her words, so she wasn't surprised when that is exactly what happened. She pressed on, "Clark, I _can't_ stay."

He sucked in a breath. "If I were to go by your logic, then I would have to assume that it means that you don't _want_ to stay," he shot back.

Lois lowered her head and picked up another shirt to fold. "I know you don't understand this, but there _is_ a difference, Clark. I really can't stay."

"You're right," he answered tightly. Even though she wasn't looking at him, Lois could imagine that his jaw was stubbornly set. "I don't understand."

The sound of a throat clearing pulled her attention to the door. "Miss Lane," a man greeted politely. He was wearing the requisite black suit, white shirt, and black tie of a hired driver. "Your father asked me to come and get your bags."

Lois nodded and jumped up from the bed. "Right, of course." She turned and glanced around, moving to zip up the two smaller bags that she had finished packing. "Um, I just need to finish the big one, but everything else is ready to go," she said, waving toward the other bags.

When the driver reached for the black guitar case after picking up the two smaller bags, she darted over and halted him with a hand on his forearm. "Be _very_ careful with that," she warned.

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied with a polite smile. "I'll take these out and come back for the last one."

"Thanks."

With a nod, the driver stepped out of the house and once again left her alone with a grumpy farm boy.

Unsure of what to say, she went back to putting the rest of her belongings into the remaining suitcase. When she zipped it up, she turned and saw Clark watching her every move closely.

"So, I guess this is it," he finally said.

"I guess so."

He crossed in front of her and lifted the bag from the bed. "Over before it began."

With a frown, Lois swallowed the urge to cry and followed behind him as he carried her bag through the doorway.

~\s/~

Lois was staring out of the window, distractedly watching the landscape melt into a green and brown blur as her father droned on in the background. The details of the conversation he was having on his cell phone were lost on her as she tried to come to terms with the whirlwind that had been the previous few hours of the day.

As odd as it seemed, she could understand her father's abrupt entrance and rearrangement of her life. Growing up as a dual-identitied pop star had meant that she often made quick entrances and exits. In her life, the world was a stage and since her every move was a performance, every night was a curtain call.

So, yes—she could understand that her dad had expected her to be ready to act on cue, because that had been how their roles had always been played. There was no reason to be surprised that he had read his part of the script: Her father hadn't changed…

…She had.

Her time at the Kent Farm had changed her enough that being pulled back into the bright stage lights of her life left her momentarily blinded.

Swallowing a sigh, Lois refocused her attention through the window as the hired car pulled onto the tarmac of the small private airport she had first encountered that day long ago when she'd been expecting Hawaii. The car slowed to a stop and she opened the door to get out, needed to stretch after the hour-long ride. She leaned against the car, watching as the driver got out and went about the task of getting her bags. Her father was still in the car on his phone call so she simply leaned against the car and crossed her arms over her chest.

There before her, in all of its silver and gold majesty, was her private jet—the chariot that was going to take her back to her kingdom.

"Why are you lookin' at that bird like you think she's gonna take you down?"

Lois turned toward the gruff voice with a huge smile on her face. "Perry!" she exclaimed, launching at the white-haired, stocky statured man that had sauntered up behind her. "What are you doing here?" she asked after pulling back only far enough to be able to look at his face.

"I had to come and get my girl," he replied sternly, keeping his expression grim.

Perry White had first made his acquaintance with the Lane family when the retired fighter pilot was hired on as Ellen Lane's head of security. He'd been a well loved older brother figure to the late singer, and after her death, had stayed close to the little girl he'd watched grow up. When Lola Dakota had begun her reign as America's favorite pop princess, Perry had naturally reassumed his former position.

Lois hugged him again and squeezed tighter and tighter until he finally let out a laugh. Laughing herself, she stepped away and narrowed her eyes in mock pique. "Oh, so _now_ you want to fly with me? Where were you when I got dumped out here in the first place?"

Perry shrugged curtly. "That was one rodeo I didn't want to ride in," he muttered, flicking a disapproving glance toward the car.

Lois's eyebrows lifted. "You didn't agree with Sam's punishment?" she asked, suddenly feeling vindicated.

Perry turned so he was fully facing her. "Oh no, Darling. I definitely thought you needed to have your hide tanned, but I didn't agree with the subterfuge."

Lois grudgingly accepted his admonishment. Perry's military background made him pretty obtuse about what he considered right and wrong. Growing up with him as an ever-present overseer, Lois had learned that he rarely wavered and rarely saw anything between the two extremes. He was another one of the few people who knew the truth about Lois Lane's relationship to Lola Dakota and, amazingly enough, that was one lie he was willing to withstand. "So it's okay to send your kid to the dump as long as you don't lie about it?" she asked, pouting.

Perry chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Oh, it's nice to have my wild child back. You ready to fly?"

The question suddenly made her thoughts return to the yellow farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. She was starting to think that she was really going to miss the backwards state of Kansas. "Yeah."

"Say goodbye for your dad and come on up," Perry said, giving her a final squeeze before letting go and stalking off toward the plane.

"Say goodbye?" Lois repeated in confusion as she watched her adopted uncle walk away. Right as she was running the words through her head, her father climbed out of the other side of the car. "Goodbye?" she asked.

Sam looked at her blankly for a second before comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Ah, yes. I'm dropping you off. I have to catch the New York-Sydney flight, but first I have to catch a flight to New York out of Topeka."

"Sydney? Topeka? New York?"

Sam rounded the car and chuckled as he moved to stand beside her. "Don't sound so offended. I'm the one who has to take a _commercial_ flight," he said, with pretend dread. "You're in good hands with Perry. He'll get you back to L.A. safe and sound."

"Why can't I go to Sydney?" Lois whined, barely registering how easy Lola slid back onto stage.

"You can't go to Sydney because you have to get back to the studio and learn Cat's choreography. You have Coachella on the books in two weeks and the newly refreshed and rehabbed Lola is going to make her appearance."

"Why can't we just do the choreography from the videos?" she asked. "Two weeks is not long enough for me to learn a whole set!"

Sam gently pushed her in the direction of the plane and nodded as the Town Car driver returned to the vehicle. "You can't do the choreography from the videos because every one and their grandmother has it memorized and has their own version on YouTube."

Lois reluctantly moved toward the plane. "It's endearing!" she called out as her dad lowered himself to sit in the car.

"Hey, Lo!" he yelled, right before closing the door. "Martha told me you really did well. I'm proud of you."

As the sleek black car pulled away, Lois frowned. It was good to hear, but suddenly she wasn't sure she shared her father's sentiment.

~\s/~

Pacing the area that served as a converted loft in the barn, Clark felt like he was going to explode… or implode… or something. He was angry. He was angry with Lois for leaving, with her dad for interrupting, with his mom for not interrupting… He had something for everyone and anyone.

Knowing that his state of mind wasn't necessarily a good one, he'd decided not to do chores. He knew animals could easily pick up on the way their caretakers were feeling and the emotions he was emoting would only lead to someone getting hurt.

Someone getting more hurt, that is.

Yes, he was angry with the world and with every _thing_ in it, but most of all he was hurt. He was hurt and he was angry.

What made it all worse was that the person at the top of his list of blame was himself.

Narrowing his eyes, Clark glared around at his surroundings. It had been a long time since he'd been up here brooding. While the tree house had been his haven when he was a child, the loft had become his "cooler" when he'd gotten too big to pace inside the fort. The loft represented the pain and confusion of his teen years, and all of a sudden, he felt like he was back in that place… in that age.

It was his fault. He had started to let her in. He had even started to lo…

Refusing to let the thought materialize, Clark reached out and picked up his old football. Everything in him wanted to squeeze the damn thing into a pulp. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that the ball had been a gift from his father… and that it wouldn't provide enough resistance to even make it a worthy stress ball.

Pressing his fingers firmly against the tough leather without consciously being aware, Clark let his mind flick back to the thought he left unfinished and decided on the word he wanted to use.

Loathe.

He had even started to loathe her.

That was how he planned on repairing his wounded ego… He didn't want her. He was going to remember the holier-than-thou attitude she'd arrived with, and he was going to ignore anything else that might have changed the way he saw her. Right now, she represented pain and confusion, and he didn't want any of it.

He turned around at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, trying to calm himself down enough that he wouldn't take it out on his undeserving mother. He couldn't help his angry tone or his words, though, when he saw exactly who it was. "What are you doing here?"

Lois's eyes dropped from his briefly before she met his gaze again. "We didn't get a chance to say goodbye."

She took the final step up to get to the loft level and Clark unconsciously retreated.

"Don't, Clark," she said, sounding as if she were almost pleading with him. "You don't know what I had to do to get back here! I had to get Per… and the plane…" She waved a hand distractedly.

"Are you staying?" he interrupted. There was no sense of welcome in his posture and he knew it.

They were back to day one.

She bit her lower lip and he knew he had his answer. "No," she answered after the brief hesitation, flicking a glance over her shoulder. "I had a taxi bring me out here… he's still outside. I, ah," she paused and swallowed. "My chariot turns into a pumpkin at midnight."

He knew it was meant to make him laugh, but at that moment, even Robin Williams riding by in a fat suit and throwing food ("Drive by fruiting!") wouldn't have coaxed a smile out of him. "What do you want, Lois?" he asked, adding the feeling of fatigue to the list of emotions that were fighting for headspace.

She quickly crossed the area and stood in front of him, inserting herself into his personal space. Instead of day one, they were now back to earlier _that _day when he had done the same to her in the stables.

He held the football in front of his chest, clutched between both hands as his last line of defense. "What do you want?" he repeated, still trying to get at her purpose for being.

She lifted a hand to his face and began stroking his cheek with her thumb. "I want to say goodbye."

The little voice in his head that had been stoking his internal fire all night screamed at him to pull away. It started ringing warning bells and setting off torpedo sirens. It reminded him that the situation had not changed—that it would not change. It threw a mental alarm clock set for midnight in his face. And then, as Clark swallowed thickly and turned his face further into her hand, the little voice—who had become a big voice—reminded him of the 'L' word ("Loathe!") and repeated his mantra ("He didn't _want_ any of it.").

Clark grudgingly accepted that the voice was right. He didn't want her there. He didn't want her in his space, in his mind, in his sight…

…But most of all, he didn't want to _need_ her like he did that in that moment.

He needed this goodbye. It wasn't right and it wasn't an answer, but whatever it was… he needed it. And he needed it right now.

The voice in his head was silent as he dropped the football and ducked his head to finally complete the kiss he had been denied of earlier.

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	11. Chapter 11

**[-11-]**

Clark was in deep concentration when his mother came looking for him.

Having recently read a book on Japanese woodwork, he had decided to implement some of the techniques in his work. The art of hidden joints, laser-precision cuts, and nail-less construction required patience, skill, and total focus. See, for the past two weeks he had been doing everything he could think of to keep himself distracted.

Two weeks before, Lois Lane had marched into his barn, encroached upon his personal space, and then lifted his spirits only to crush his soul, all in the span of a few hours. When he thought about it, he wasn't sure if it were better to have had the chance to say goodbye (loved and lost versus loved, yadda yadda yadda) when it left everything unsolved like it did. But that was the trouble with having time to think. Clark knew that if he stopped to think about it, he'd have to concede that Lois had been right—that they were different people, with different destinies.

But he also knew that if he stopped to _really _think about it—to go beyond the uneven truce that Lois had insisted upon with her departure—then he'd have to concede that _he _was right all along… That _she _shouldn't have left in the first place.

Since his two minds were always in conflict, he had resorted to keeping his body busy and his mind diverted. Hence, the extra effort being put into doing chores at _normal _speed and into the craftsmanship of latticework on a fence no one would ever see.

The extreme focus was beneficial for keeping unwanted thoughts at bay, but it also meant that he wasn't quite as… observant as he usually was. That explained why the wooden post in his hands disintegrated when his mother called his name.

Spinning around, he grimaced at the sound of all of the connecting posts from the fence he was building falling over like dominoes. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that the grazing cows ignored the disturbance. "Heyyyy Mom," he offered weakly.

Her eyebrows lifted and Clark could tell what she was thinking—after all, no one had been able to startle him since he was three years old. Her expression told him that she must have called him a number of times before finally getting his attention.  
"Telephone," was all she said in lieu of the myriad of thoughts that wordlessly flashed across her face.

In spite of his efforts to not look overly hopeful, he could tell that his mother knew exactly what he was thinking… after all, he hadn't been able to fool Martha Kent since long before he was three years old. Not to mention the fact that there was no way she could have missed the taxi that sat idling in the driveway for three hours the day Lois came back to say goodbye.

"It's Chloe," she offered, smiling lightly.

Clark's chin dropped slightly. It wasn't the call he had been hoping for, but hope was blind… the call he was hoping for was not going to come. The call from Chloe, however, was the next best thing. "I'll, uh…" pausing, he took another glance behind him to see a few cows moving closer to the downed fence. "I'll get the extension in the barn."

Nodding, his mother turned and started back toward the house. By the time she made it to the kitchen and picked up the phone's headset, Clark had rebuilt the fence… with nails.

~\s/~

"Thanks Mom, I got it."

Clark waited until he heard his mother say goodbye to Chloe and hang up before addressing his long time friend. "Chloe, hey!"

Clark heard a light chuckle come through the line. "Hey yourself. Your mom said you were working, I didn't want to pull you awa…"

"No, no, no," he interrupted. "I'm glad! I mean, I really wanted to talk to you."

"I kinda gathered that from all the messages you left me."

Clark shrugged even though he knew she wouldn't see it. "Sorry, I know you're busy…"

"Don't apologize; we made a deal to do a better job with staying in touch. I should be the one saying sorry that it took so long to get back to you. It's the season for crazy schedules."

The earnest in her voice made Clark feel a little guilty that his motivation for calling hadn't really been about their pact to keep in touch. "Uhh, so… how are you? Besides being busy, I mean," he asked, trying to appease some of his shame.

Chloe laughed again. "I really haven't been able to think much further than twenty-four hours ahead, so I don't know that I can answer that question without saying…"

"…Busy," he entered, already getting the gist of the running theme. He chuckled along with her. "Well, I don't want to keep you, or anything, I just…"

"Clark, come on, I can take a break for a friend! Believe me, I could use the opportunity to think of something besides span progressions, mic tics, and gaffing markers."

Clark was confused by her words but just assumed she was working on a new album and was talking about studio stuff. "Yeah," he offered, not really knowing what to say, but keeping the conversation going anyway.

"But enough about mi vida loca. How are things with you? Are the chickens less traumatized now that your house guest is gone?" she asked, teasingly.

Clark glanced out the window from his loft in the barn at the reminder. He could see the farm's rooster walking in forlorn circles near the coop. "Rosco is a bit depressed," he said. Chloe found that statement hilarious but he was serious… and empathetic.

"Wow, I would have never believed that Lois would befriend a rooster if I hadn't seen it for myself."

Clark turned and leaned against the wall. "So, ah, speaking of Lois…" he began hesitantly, "I was wondering, um, if you had a number…" He mentally smacked himself for that question—she was her cousin, for crying out loud. Of course she would have her number! "…Or a way I could reach her."

He listened to the silence as Chloe seemed to think about his question and wondered what she was thinking. The last time Chloe had seen he and Lois together hadn't been very pretty. In fact, it had been downright hostile. Chloe would no doubt be trying to rack her brain for a reason he'd want to get in contact with someone he clearly (at least as far as she knew) didn't like.

"…Did she leave something?" she finally asked.

Clark swallowed and tried not to think about the black bra he'd found tucked under the cushions of his couch—something Lois had probably forgotten in her haste to get back to her plane that night. "Uh, yes!" he said, even though he had no intention of returning that item, "I was hoping I could talk to her about it."

The other side of the call went silent again and Clark knew he had sounded too eager to be believable. Rubbing his chin with the hand not holding the phone, he closed his eyes and waited for Chloe's next response.

"You know you can just send it to her dad. I'm sure your mom has the address."

Clark thought it was a bit strange that Chloe would offer Mr. Lane as Lois's mail contact but didn't dwell on it long. Instead his thoughts were preoccupied with the mention of his mother, who, even though he was _pretty _sure knew what was going on (given the knowing looks and all), had yet to confront him about it. And he wanted to keep it that way. For some reason, he just didn't want to have his mom in on his thing—whatever this 'thing' was—with Lois. He sighed. "The truth is… I really just want to talk to her… to Lois," he stammered.

"What about?" came the immediate reply.

Clark wondered if Chloe's tone was defensive or protective. "I, ah, we had a disagreement before she left, and I was hoping… to clear it up."

"Clear it up?" she repeated. Clark had no trouble recognizing her tone this time—it was disbelieving. "Clark, it seemed pretty clear to me that you guys had been _disagreeing _since the moment she got there."

His shoulders drooped a bit as he realized that he was going to have to give some to get some. "Things changed a little between us after you left."

"Changed?" she questioned. "Between you and Lois?"

"Well, more than a little," he continued in reply. "We, um, got closer."

"Closer?" she parroted again, laughing. "Between you and Lois? Closer, like in proximity? As in she hit you… with a tractor, or something?"

Clark would have been amused had it not been so clear that she didn't believe him. "No! Closer… as in she kissed me… or I kissed her, or whatever."

The laughter on the other end of the line trailed off into the sound of a choke and coughing. "Kiss?" Chloe squeaked. Then in her regular voice, she asked, "between you and Loi…"

"Between me and Lois, yes."

"And then she left and now you want to talk to her."

After the teasing and laughing, he wasn't prepared for the seriousness with which Chloe delivered that last line. He blinked in surprise at the sudden change in tone the conversation had taken. "Ye-yes."

When she didn't say anything in response, he felt the need to say more. "I think I…_really _like her, Chloe, and um… believe it or not, I think she belongs here." Having spoken it aloud for the first time to someone other than Lois herself, Clark became even more convinced of the soundness of his argument. Lois just needed to come back. It was as simple as that, and he would convince her as well as soon as he got the chance to talk to her.

"I'm sorry, Clark. I have to go."

"Chloe! Wait! What did…"

"I can't be in the middle of this."

Clark had never experienced whiplash before but he thought he might have the symptoms. "The middle of what?" he asked, thoroughly confused now.

He heard her sigh. "Listen Clark… I hate to say it, but if Lois didn't leave you her number, then she… doesn't want you to have it."

"I just want to talk to her," he insisted, feeling so close to his goal and at the same time, so far away from it.

"It seems pretty clear to me that she doesn't want to talk to you."

"Did she say that?" When there was no immediate response, he pressed on. "If she didn't say that then how can we know for sure?"

It was quiet on the other end so Clark sharpened his concentration in hopes of picking up any sound from Chloe's side of the call. "Have you seen her? Talked to her? Chloe, tell her to call me."

"Tell me something, Clark." She sounded resigned and a little bit angry. "You say that she belongs _there_… belongs with you, but what about the life she already has?"

"What life?" he scoffed back.

"You don't know the first thing about Lois's life, Clark."

"Chloe…"

"No. You really don't… and I'm starting to see why Lois didn't say anything to me about this—about the two of you."

"Chloe, believe me, I know what's best for her!"

She laughed dryly. "How could you possibly when you don't even know her… No, don't answer that." She sighed. "I think… it's probably best that you steer clear of Lois."

"But I…"

"I'm really sorry, Clark. I have to go."

Grimacing, Clark knew he was at the end of that particular rope. "I'm sorry too, Chloe. I didn't mean to put you in the middle… or make you uncomfortable." He wanted to clear the air a bit more… maybe ask about how she was doing again, but knew it was too late. "Um… Take care?"

"Yeah, you too."

Hearing the click when she ended her side of the call, Clark did the same and let out a long breath, wondering if he'd just killed the remnants of a relationship he'd shared with one of his oldest friends because he'd pressed to hard. Even as grim as those thoughts were, he couldn't help but smile as he started putting pieces together in the back of his mind.

In those few minutes when Chloe had been silent, he'd picked up on the sounds of her environment. He realized that she wasn't at a music studio, but at a stadium of some sort. And that's when he remembered two things. One: Chloe—Lois's cousin—was playing at Coachella that weekend, and two: so was Lola Dakota—Lois's 'best' friend.

If Lois was going to be there, then so was he.

~\s/~

Less than twenty-four hours later, Clark was standing on the outskirts of a large crowd that was corralled in front of a large outdoor stage. Feeling a bit out of place in his long sleeved red plaid shirt, floppy trucker's hat, and brown work boots in the midst of scantily-clad concert-goers, he shrugged out of his button down and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. He figured that the plain white tee he had on underneath would look less conspicuously 'country' and out of place.

He scanned the crowd intently, looking for a familiar face among the thousands of faces that swarmed around him. Coachella was an annual music fest that attempted to take the concept that made Woodstock a cultural icon and expand on it. Three days of music acts played on three different stages—the excitement in the air was palpable. Clark felt the same rush of the moment that he saw on everyone else's faces but knew his reasons were different. His research that morning had informed him that Chloe's mini-concert would be played on the main stage as a warm-up act for the headliner… who was none other than the infamous Lola Dakota.

With those facts, Clark was sure that Lois would be in the crowd.

"Hey! Don't let it fall!"

Clark's was pulled away from peering through the crowd by the sound of someone yelling at him.

"Aww, come on, man! Don't be a wet rag!" He blinked and turned as another nearby voice—a woman's this time—admonished him for his lack of compliance. What he wasn't complying with, however, was a mystery to him.

Looking down, he saw that there was a colorful beach ball sitting on the ground near his feet. More people in the crowd were urging him on so he picked it up and tossed it back toward the group with a sheepish shrug of apology. Apparently, the crowd was getting restless as they waited for the next act to take the stage and he had interrupted their diversion.

Muttering a few more apologies, Clark started to edge his way toward the stage, all while still scanning the faces around him. Having not seen Lois in the crowd toward the back, he decided that she must be in a VIP section near the front.

While Clark worked his way through the crowd, he found that he'd somehow lost his plaid shirt and he'd encountered a number of people who weren't too happy about his jostling for position. He found that the less conversation he engaged in, the easier it was to move on. By the time he'd gotten close enough to the stage that he could see the security detail, a few musicians had come on the stage to begin plugging in their instruments and amplifiers. Their presence and the inference that the show would be starting soon caused the crowd to erupt in cheers. With everyone's attention on the stage, Clark found it even less problematic to push all the way to the front.

Another cheer went up as a blond-haired man wearing tight jeans and a black bedazzled tank top ran out on the stage with a microphone. "How y'all doing out there?"

While the audience yelled back at the man on the stage, Clark peered at their faces.

"All right, all right!" the man continued, pacing the stage to make sure he made visual contact with all sides of the area. "You guys look ready! Are you ready for the next act?" Each time he spoke, the mass response got louder. "I saa-iiid, are you ready for your next act?... If you're ready for Sully, make some noooo-oise!"

Clark was surprised at the number of pre-teen girls littering the area in front of the stage. Didn't they have school or something? He turned toward the stage when the music started, and for a while, he stood as transfixed as the little girls he was next to as he watched his friend perform. She was singing a more rocked-up version of one of his favorite songs. Smiling, he turned back to the crowd, still not having found the one face he had been searching for.

A slight hesitation in the verse Chloe was singing caused Clark to glance up at the stage. She kept on singing and he was pretty sure that no one else had caught it, but given the way she was staring wide-eyed in his direction, he knew the hitch hadn't been a planned part of the song.

He waved and the action seemed to knock her out of her stupor. She blinked and flicked the briefest of glances toward the eaves on the left side of the stage. It was in that slight motion that Clark realized his mistake. VIPs wouldn't be in the crowd…

He needed to get backstage.

~\s/~

Lois leaned closer to the mirror so she could get a better angle as she applied a large star design to the right half of her face. "She sounds good doesn't she?" she asked, dabbing her make-up brush into the gold coloring for the outline.

Behind her, Tess was peering up at the closed circuit television that was mounted in the top corner of the dressing room. "She missed a note," the red-head observed.

"Yeah, I caught that too," Lois admitted. She finished the design. "Probably swallowed a bug," Lois teased. "I hate it when that happens. Damn outdoor concerts."

She caught Tess' glare in the reflection of the mirror when the older woman turned around to hand her Lola's blonde wig.

"Thanks." When Lois caught Tess' new expression, she shrugged. "What?"

"You just said thank you… And actually sounded like you meant it."

Lois bent forward to slide the wig over her pinned down locks. "I can take it back if it will make you feel better," she offered while still upside down. She sat back up, flinging the blonde hair over her shoulders and shaking it out. Tess was still looking at her suspiciously. "Fine. Look, I just… I realize that the whole Lola thing means that only a few people can be around when the intimate prep-work is done. If it weren't for that, you'd be out taking notes on Chloe's missed notes from your favorite side-row seat." Lois spun around in her chair so she was facing her instead of the mirror. "I mean, no other publicist has to take on so many extra responsibilities… So, thanks."

Tess pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow. "Well… you're welcome… I think." She reached out and fixed the lace wrap edges of the wig so that the hair laid flat and looked natural. "There. Now Lola has arrived."

As if to show her agreement, Lois took that moment to snap a bubble with her chewing gum. "Ye-up," she drawled in Lola's patented accent. "Let's get this party started." When Tess continued looking at her strangely, she laughed. "Now, what?"

Tess seemed conflicted. "I don't know…"

Hopping up from her chair, Lois smacked Tess on the shoulder. "Cheer up, Toots. We've got a show to kill!" Snapping her gum loudly, she crossed to the door of the dressing room and pulled it open. "Wardrobe!"

"Lo…" At Tess' call, Lois turned her head away from the door. "Are you happy?"

The question confused Lois.

"With all of this, I mean," Tess continued, gesturing around the room.

Lois met her eyes for a moment, considering both the question and the answer. Was she happy? Maybe it wasn't as simple as that. She was Lola and she was Lois. It was what it was.

As she was thinking about a way to verbalize that sentiment, the music changed. Knowing Chloe's set by heart, Lois knew that she had to get moving. "Sully's on her second song…" she leaned her head out of the door. "Where the hell is my wardrobe? Let's go people, let's go! Hop-hop, snap-snap!" People bustling through the halls dodged to get out of the way as a short dark haired man led two female assistants into the room. "Rafa! What the hell?"

"Sorry, Lo-lo," he effused. "I wish you would get over this whole 'I do my own make-up and hair' phase. You're a star, Honey, you need to start banking on it!"

Lois rolled her eyes and followed the three people into the room. Rafa was immediately barking orders as he pulled her robe off her shoulders.

A triple knock sounded at the door and Lois nodded to Tess who crossed the room to open it. A tall brunette slid agilely into the room. She was wearing all black, wearing a wireless headset, and carrying a clipboard. "Lola!" she shouted after moving the mic away from her mouth.

"Hey, Cat…" Catherine Grant was the head choreographer and tour director.

"…No! No time for heys. The dancers are ready. Do you have your cues?"

Lois glanced over from where the wardrobe assistants were literally sewing her into her outfit. "I _have_ the cues," she replied. This was a conversation she'd been having with Cat since she'd gotten back from her 'rehab stint'. The woman was crazy about making sure nothing went wrong with her 'vision'.

"Don't give me that look, Lola. We only get one shot with that crane. There are no re-dos when we go live. This isn't a rehearsal."

Lois shot a look over Cat's shoulder to Tess as if asking for help. Tess merely shrugged as if to agree with the director. Sighing, Lois nodded. "I know, I know. One and done. Got it."

"Well you better," Cat groused. "The Sully act is on for three and a half more minutes and then we have eight to get the stage flipped and then it's you, millions of people, and a crane. See where I'm going with this?"

Final sequin in place, Lois braced herself against the shoulder of the nearest assistant while Rafa held her shoes still for her to step into. "Kitty Cat," she drawled, "I'm so far in where you're going that I'm sending you a postcard." She flashed her a grin. "Millions?"

"Millions," Cat repeated. They were televising this portion of the music fest live LNN's entertainment cable channel. Despite her hang-ups (or maybe because of them), Lola was a sure-win in all the demographics that counted for the pop scene. Her live shows—when she showed up—were always extraordinary. "Maybe more. Now hear me, Lola, this is important. The rig is set to automatically descend on mark with the music. You have to be on point on the platform, okay?"

"I know! On point. On platform. Just like the run-through yesterday… and the day before that… and the day before _that_…" Lois smirked as Cat and Tess shared a look before the brunette pointed at her warningly and ducked back out the door.

After being completely dressed and fitted with her mic and ear piece, Lois paused to take a final look in the mirror. Even with all of the bustle and warnings, her biggest concern at that moment was that she wouldn't have a wardrobe malfunction in the pants Rafa had just 'painted' her into. She straightened and joined Tess by the door. "Ready when you are, Chief."

Tess pointed to the garbage can next to the door. "Gum."

Lois obediently spit, wagging her eyebrows when the gum banked off the wall and landed in the can.

Tess rolled her eyes and stepped outside. "Let's get you to the catwalk."

Just as they were exiting the dressing room, Tess' walkie-talkie beeped. "Security Team Tango to Mercer."

Tess frowned but pulled her walkie to her mouth. "This is Tess Mercer, go ahead Tango."

"Ms. Mercer, we have a code twenty-two at Access Location Five. Could you please assist?"

With narrowed eyes, Tess pressed down the talk button. "On my way."

Lois listened with interest. "What's a code twenty-two?"

"Nothing, come on." Tess continued to lead her to the end of the hall where Perry was standing and attentively watching the comings and goings of all the concert personnel. "You heard the chatter?" Tess asked as Perry fell into step with them, flanking Lois on the other side.

Perry nodded. "Go ahead. I got her."

Tess nodded and broke away from their fast moving little group.

"Got me? _I'm_ the one that's got me. What's a twenty-two?" she asked.

Perry just shook his head and laced her arm around his elbow.

Lois frowned, not enjoying being 'handled' but not having much of a choice. She closed her eyes and began doing a few vocal warm-up exercises.

"Here you go, Doll," he announced.

Lois opened her eyes to see that they were at the ladder to the catwalk. "You're not coming with me?" she asked, teasingly.

Perry growled and nudged her forward. "Get on up that rig, little girl."

Lois laughed and grabbed the railings so she could begin her ascent. "How can you be afraid of a little catwalk? You're a pilot for Pete's sake!"

"I didn't say I was afraid," he muttered. "Just too old to be hanging from these flimsy looking monkey bars."

Lois laughed louder and continued singing as she climbed.

~\s/~

Clark sighed as he looked down at the scene developing below. He had been trying to explain to the security guard—Norton, his badge had said—that he was a friend of the current singer, but the guard hadn't bought it. Clark had even gone so far as to explain that he'd _just_ talked to Chloe Sullivan the day before the show and if they could just ask her, she would confirm it. Norton had just shaken his head and informed him that all his VIPs were accounted for. Clark had attempted to take a look at the PDA the man was carrying to no avail. The security guard hadn't taken kindly to Clark's advance and had turned to call another nearby guard to come over and escort him out.

Not seeing much choice, Clark had disappeared as soon as the man's head turned. The two guards had begun searching the area for him… they just hadn't thought to look up. Now, standing in the catwalk, he was feeling pretty bad about the apparent uproar he had caused. Norton had just called for someone named Mercer on his walkie-talkie and Clark was now a 'twenty-two'… He didn't know what a twenty-two was, but given the number of security personnel that were gathering directly below him, it looked serious. As he crouched lower to the floor grate to remain out of sight, a red-haired woman hurried to the group and spoke in hushed tones to Norton. With so many of the guards having conversations with their walkies, Clark couldn't quite make out what she was saying but he could tell from the way that she carried herself that she was a force to be reckoned with.

He chose not to do the reckoning. Knowing that this situation was quickly getting out of control, he decided to go ahead and finish what he started. Gingerly straightening up, he quietly began making his way toward the area the music was coming from.

When he arrived at the side of the stage, he was considering how and when to drop down unnoticed into the backstage personnel when the red-haired woman appeared flanked by two security guards. Chloe's last song ended and he watched as she thrust her guitar at someone and ran off the stage without even acknowledging the cheers and applause from the crowd. She ran straight to the red-haired woman, and Clark turned his head so he could listen in.

"Tess, where is she?" It surprised him at how frantic Chloe sounded.

The other woman—Tess—didn't seem to have heard the question because she was busy saying her own part. "We might have a breach. These two are going to escort you to your dressing room. I need to make sure you get there sa…"

"No! Wait! I know… He's not here for me!"

That caused Tess to pause. "What?"

Chloe's head was whipping back and forth as if she were looking for someone. She started walking quickly deeper into the backstage area with Tess and the two guards following closely behind. "We have to find him before…"

As Chloe's voice trailed off, he frowned, thinking about what she was saying. Was she talking about finding him? If so, why had she sounded so terrified? He started to move back toward the direction that they had taken, attuning his ears even more to catch what they were saying when something else caught his attention.

Startled, he turned back to the stage. The sound was coming from the catwalk directly above the middle of the stage.

Someone was singing… and he recognized the voice.

~\s/~

Lois lowered herself onto the platform from the catwalk and hooked the waiting carabineer onto the loop at the back of her pants. After testing the security of the line, she pressed the button on the small mic pack that was situated on the small of her back and cleared her throat. "Control come in, this is L. D."

Cat's voice came back to her through the ear piece, "L. D., this is control. All set?"

"All systems go on this end," Lois reported, looking down through the see-through platform to see her band getting set up.

"Okay, we're going to lower the platform to the start position and then it's going to be radio silence until go time. Clear?"

"As a blue sky on a sunny day," Lois answered with a smile.

"Control out. Knock 'em dead, kid."

"I always do," Lois answered over a slight sigh. The mics were already off—now being controlled by Cat's sound crew—so Lois knew she was talking to herself. Closing her eyes, she began doing her mental pre-show routine while the platform slowly lowered the two feet distance to the 'start' position. It would be from this location that she would lower onto the stage during her first number.

The sudden shaking of the rig caused her to snap to attention. When she opened her eyes, she saw that it wasn't a mechanical issue that had caused the platform to wobble… it was because someone had just jumped onto it from above. "What the…!"

Her voice died in her throat when she got a good look at her visitor. Clark.

Praying that she was mistaken… and-slash-or dreaming, Lois closed her eyes and opened them again. Nope. He was still there.

And he was still Clark Kent.

Still, she had to play it straight. "Whoa. Listen, Honey, I think you took a wrong turn somewhere," she drawled, pitching her voice an octave higher than normal. "This ain't your ride."

He blinked and she could see his confusion all over his face. "I'm sorry… I thought…"

"See, I don't really care what you thought, let's just get you out of here…" Lois grimaced at the annoying sound of her twice-over fake voice.

"Lola?" Clark questioned, still making no move to climb out of the rig. "Lola Dakota?"

Lois braced her hands on her hips. "Okay, so you know who I am! That's great, but the only thing I want to know about you is how quickly you can leave." She was about to push him toward the rear edge when the lights over the stage dimmed and an announcer came on the mic.

"And now ladies and gentlemen… the one and only… Lo-la Dakota!"

As the crowd erupted, Lois's eyes popped. "Not happening. Not happening," she mumbled. "Get out. Now," she ordered.

Apparently realizing the impending seriousness of the show starting, Clark finally turned to leave. Then the music—a stylized version of 'Whatever Lola Wants' by Sarah Vaughn—cued.

"Crap!" Lois exclaimed, forgetting both the drawl and the pitch.

Clark turned around abruptly. "Lois?"

Lois groaned internally. He would be the one to recognize the way she said _that_ word. "Sonny, you sound confused," she said, regaining her composure and trying to use verbiage as far from her normal speak as possible—the downside was that she sounded like she was eighty years old—"But you still have time if you jump… now. Right now! Come on…" She began gesturing hurriedly. "Up, up… and away!"

"I'm not going anywhere." His brow furrowed and his head tilted to the side as took a step closer.

Lois could see the wheels turning in his head and her hand automatically shot up to block his as he reached toward the plunging neckline of her outfit. There was a certain mole that only certain people who'd seen certain areas of her body would know to look for… "I could have you arrested for that, Farm Boy." She immediately regretted her choice of words.

In response, Clark's eyes flashed with anger and comprehension. Faster than she could react, he reached up and pulled the wig off of her head, sending a good number of bobby pins flying. Adding fuel to her horror, the rig chose that moment to start descending.

"Oh, this is not good," Lois muttered, running a hand through her hair in near hysterics. "Soooo not good."

"So you lied?" Clark yelled angrily.

"This is not the time for this," she warned, holding up a hand. Hearing the music near her cue, she fumbled with the mic pack on her lower back, swearing audibly when she remembered there was no way to turn it off. Giving up, she reached wildly for her wig.

"Talk to me," he demanded. "Why are you wearing this?" He pulled the wig up as he mentioned it, unconsciously moving it away from her grabbing hands. "Why are you dressed like this? What the hell is going on?"

Lois realized she had less than sixty seconds before her mic went live. "Clark, listen…"

"Oh, so now you know who _I_ am. You lied about _everything_!"

"I didn't lie!" Fifty seconds. His glare intensified. "…I just didn't tell you everything, but I can't do that now."

"What else did you lie about?" he asked, not even hearing what she was saying.

Forty-three seconds. "Focus, Clark. This is my life and it's about to go extremely bad if you don't do exactly what I tell you…"

"All that stuff you said about me… hell, maybe even all that stuff you said about your mother…"

The ticking of Lois's mental clock disappeared at that. "Don't. You. Dare," she bit out. "You don't know anything."

"Obviously."

"Just shut up. Okay?" Looking down, she saw the platform had crossed into the space being visible by the stage. A few more feet and they would be visible to the crowd and cameras. She saw Chloe in the stage wings pointing up at them to Tess and chuckled. This was a complete disaster.

"Oh, you think it's funny?" Clark asked, shoving the blonde wig back toward her chest.

She accepted it half-heartedly. She had already accepted that it was too little too late.

Clark continued to ramble, "Please forgive me if I don't find it annoying to learn that…"—Lois closed her eyes as the platform became visible and the music hit the cue so that her mic when live right when he said—"…Lola Dakota is really Lois Lane!"

~\s/~

The sudden echo of his voice over the sound system finally pulled Clark from his rage-fueled fugue. To their credit, the musicians were still playing, even though from his position with his back to the crowd, he could see them looking at one another with wide eyes. Lois was standing between him and the crowd, leaning against the back rail of the rig with her head down. The enormity of the situation sunk in as the platform settled onto the stage.

"Lois…" he said, quieter than the music this time.

"Shut up," she whispered back. Suddenly grinning, she lifted her head with flair, and flipped her hair over her shoulders, stepping around him to be fully visible.

Guiltily, he found himself hoping that Lois—or Lola, or whoever she was—could play the whole thing off somehow. Maybe she could just start singing and pretend it was just part of the intro to the show.

Sing, he thought to himself. _Sing_.

Slowly turning around, he saw Lois's image being shown on the large screens posted on the sides of the stage and in the crowd area. She was staring out at the audience in silent shock… and they were staring back at her with the same.

_Sing_, he prayed again, but he was starting to lose hope that even that would fix this. He was sure there were a large number of people in the crowd who were trying to understand what was going on… others were already pulling out their phones (if they hadn't already been recording, that is). Delayed, Clark remembered that this concert was being televised live. In this age of technology…

"Lois, I…"

She blinked but didn't turn to look at him. Instead, she shook her head as if to say, 'Don't make it worse.'

Glancing to toward the wings, he saw groups of security personnel gathering in preparation to rush the stage. To his surprise, only one man—a stocky man with a gray crew cut and an angry scowl—came out on the stage. Clark wasn't afraid of many things but the imposing demeanor of the man made up for where his size left off. Even the band seemed to agree because the music trailed off as he crossed the stage.

Clark momentarily considered running, but then he saw Chloe's distraught face from where she stood in the opposite stage wing. Swallowing, he stepped from the platform and raised his hands. He was led off the stage—none too gently—and right before they reached the end, he turned his head back to take a final look.

The outed pop-star stood dejectedly frozen in the center of a million flashing lights.

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	12. Chapter 12

[-12-]

"Tonight on Newsline, we take a look at the surprising career of the daughter of one of the most venerated singers of our time."

The graphic on the television screen faded from the program's logo to an image of two juxtaposed pictures; one a black and white shot of Ellen 'Ella' Lane at a piano, and the other, a black and white shot of Lois 'Lola Dakota' Lane standing in the middle of a stage with her head down in dejection. The starkness of the contrast in the picture and the shine of a lone spotlight left the pop princess looking like an angel.

The male voiceover continued while the mother-daughter pictures were shown. "The life of Lois Lane was always hidden from the public eye… at least that's the story the world believed. That's the story the world was *told* to believe."

The image on the screen rotated and zoomed in so that the black-and-white of Lois filled the screen.

"Four weeks ago, the world was re-introduced to a young woman—a fallen princess of pop—who showed us all exactly what it means to say, the show must go on."

In time with the reporter's words, the title of the news piece was revealed across the screen: 'The Show Must Go On'.

The white text dissolved just as the picture morphed from being in black-and-white to being colorized. Then a few seconds later, it became animated as Lois's head lifted to face the crowd. The sounds of wind and quiet chatter coming from the video were completely out of place at a music concert.

"Well, looking out, it seems like everyone's a little shell shocked right now," the video version of Lois said, "so, if it's okay with you, I'm going to do something a little different tonight." The camera took a crazy zoom action to frame her face in the view. Even though she was smiling winningly, the close-up made it impossible not to see the tears that were building up in her eyes.

The video showed Lois dropping the blonde wig onto the ground and walking over to one of her guitarists. As she leaned over to say something in the man's ear, the voiceover returned. "The Coachella audience sat in rapt and shocked attention as the newly revealed pop princess stood unmoving for two silent minutes after her assailant was removed from the stage. No one knew what was going to happen next, but what *did* take place was far beyond the expectations of anyone, present or watching from home."

Finished talking to the guitarist, Lois returned to the center of the stage with the man's electric acoustic guitar now hanging from a strap around her neck. The guitarist followed behind her with a stool and a microphone stand, situating them both near where she was standing. Nodding her thanks, Lois scooted the stool closer to the mic and lifted the guitar into place.

"This is, ah… This is a song that I wrote for my cousin to sing…" She paused and chuckled. "…But she told me that… she said that it was too good for me not to sing it myself." Shooting a glance toward the unseen offstage area, Lois smiled again. "Maybe she'll do me the favor of singing it with me."

The reporter's voice returned again as a petite blonde carrying a polka dot decorated guitar walked from the side of the stage that Lois had been looking at. "The appearance of Chloe Sullivan at her cousin's request for a duet was a surprise that showed everyone just how little we knew about a musical phenom that we thought we had watched grow up."

On the screen, Chloe was now seated on a stool with a second microphone stand. Lois started playing a song, and after a few bars, Chloe joined in. They both looked as if they were having the time of their lives, and anyone watching felt the privilege of being let in on a private family moment. After about a half of a minute of the harmonizing sounds of the two guitars being played, Lois turned to the crowd, welcoming them into the family for just a moment. "This song is called… Two is Better Than One. I hope you like it."

The music continued in the background as the image on the screen changed to show images of Lois as a child. The first was the well know funeral image, then there were stills from Lola Dakota's children's television show when she was eight.

"The complexity of the life of this musician is one that can only be understood by combining what is known about two little girls. Even with her growing up on camera, the Lola Dakota that we all knew and loved revealed only one peek into the depths of talent that Lois Lane has kept hidden from the world."

An animated image of an American Music Award twirling and glistening under a spotlight took over the right half of the screen.

"It is well known that Lola Dakota won eight Grammy awards over the span of her career. Lois Lane, on the other hand, won quite a few more than that. It was recently revealed that Lois had more than one secret identity. She also moonlighted as the never-seen six-time Grammy award winning songwriter, Wanda Detroit."

Superimposed pictures started overlapping on the screen, chronicling the timeline of Lola's career through album covers, magazine spreads, red carpet sightings, and early morning paparazzi shots.

"With all of the attention and all of the weight of living dual and triple lives, is it any wonder that the Lola persona began a spiral into scandal and rash behavior?" the reporter asked as one of the last photos appeared. It showed a clearly inebriated Lola Dakota dancing in a club with gossip maven Jiminez Olsen looking on. The image split down the middle. "As much as we knew about Lola Dakota… we knew even less about Lois Lane… That is, until that fateful night in April, earlier this year."

The cracked image split apart to reveal the Coachella video once again as the song Lois and Chloe were playing ended. The crowd remained quiet, and Lois stood from the stool. Shrugging sheepishly, she unstrapped the guitar and handed it to Chloe. She stepped to the microphone and smiled one last time. "Thank you." Then, pausing only long enough to place a kiss on her cousin's forehead, she ran off the stage.

"Still shocked by all they had witnessed this night, it took the Coachella audience a while to respond." On screen, a low chant repeating Lois's name was beginning to build. "But when they finally did, it was overwhelming."

The video showed Chloe staring off in the direction Lois had run into, and like everyone else, she appeared to be waiting for her to return. The chants grew louder, accented with claps, and even the band members got in on the action—they were standing and clapping along with the entire audience.

"They clapped and called for her for an hour…" The image morphed into numerous shots of the cheering crowd, and then into a shot of the emcee trying to get them to calm down.

"Alas," the reporter lamented, "the acceptance that Lois had seemed to want came too late. Lois Lane had left the building. And she hasn't been seen since."

The camera panned to the audience and featured a crying little girl for a few seconds before the scene faded to black.

The black image dissolved into a shot of the reporter—a fatherly looking, African-American male wearing wire-rimmed glasses (certain to appeal widely across demographics)—sitting at a desk in a studio. Off to the left side of screen, a large poster-like stand showed the 'fallen angel' picture from the concert along with new text: 'Where in the World is Lois Lane?'.

The reporter made sincere eye-contact with the home audience and continued his report. "And maybe that's the point… the true essence of America's fascination with this young woman's story. Where is Lois Lane? How is it possible that someone with that much fame and notoriety could pull the wool over the eyes of the whole world and over the eyes of a technologically advanced nation that counts on the ability to recognize persons of interest as part of its national security. If she could do it, who else could?"

A picture of Lola Dakota running away from a group of paparazzi dissolved onto the screen. Her face—as usual—was half covered by an intricate design, and her blonde hair flowed behind her in waves.

"Where is Lois Lane? Would we even recognize her if we saw her on the street? We are only now coming to understand the magnitude of the detail and planning that had to go into the creation of the public image of Lola Dakota. If she was ever seen without the face paint, it was only because an elaborate costume obscured her visage." Now an image of Lola wearing a huge red crown appeared on the screen. Attached to the crown was a red veil that covered her face completely.

"Some are asking if we should now see the spectacle—which we once took for granted as personality—as deliberate manipulation and disguise…" Another image of Lola in a face-hiding outfit was shown. "…But those who take that position are few, far between, and in the minority."

A video clip showed a group of screaming young girls in front of a record store. The audio cut in just in time to hear their joined voices say, "We love you, Lola! Please come back!" Another clip showed two college-aged young men in a coffee shop looking at a newspaper front page that showed an image from the failed concert. "She's hot," one of them said. "Very hot," his friend chimed in. A third video clip showed an adult couple sitting on a park bench in New York's Central Park. The camera man asked them what they thought about Lois Lane and the husband immediately smiled. "Such an amazing talent," he answered. His wife nodded emphatically before adding, "And to think… we never even knew!" Another clip showed a late-twenties woman dressed in a business suit and holding an iPod. "Inspiring," she said with a grin. "She just makes me know that anything is possible."

The reporter was shown again. "Fans of all ages have come out in support of Lois Lane, and while the youngest seem to be the most forgiving—or perhaps, the most oblivious about the mixed identity—it's the oldest who seem to be the most philosophical and understanding."

The screen moved to a video interview with a famous music producer named Bobby 'Big Mouth' Viscuso. His longevity in the business was well represented, not only in the salt and pepper coloring of his hair, but also by the silver and gold mounted records that decorated the wall behind his back. He fingers were tented under his chin as he contemplated what he wanted to say. "I worked with her mother, you know." He leaned back in his seat and a fond smile broke out across his face. "Ella was a master. A master—and that's not a word we use lightly in this business—but she had a greatness that wasn't truly realized, wasn't truly *appreciated* until after we'd already lost her. That was the true tragedy. And I remember… Lois was, she was just a tiny girl—you know, not really walking, just toddling around while we were working—but Ella was really protective. She loved that girl. She really did." The music exec leaned forward again, nodding thoughtfully. "So, for me it makes sense. Something that big, something as pure as what would be between a mother and daughter… You'd want to keep that... Yeah, you'd want to keep that to yourself."

The image changed to show lines inside of record stores as people made purchases. "Dakota franchise record sales have skyrocketed and reached record highs as old and new fans alike try to figure out the underlying mystery that is Lois Lane. And while millions are enjoying the rebirth of Lola Dakota's all time hits, the real clamor has been for something new. All the major record labels have come out with public offers to sign Lois Lane to a deal, assuming conflict with her current label owner and father, Samuel Lane, to be the cause of her disappearance."

A video clip showed Samuel Lane giving an impromptu press conference in front of his L. A. offices appeared on the screen. "No, I haven't seen her since the concert but she did call to say that she was fine. As far as I know she has no impending plan on coming back any time soon. She said that she just wants to be left alone."

The reporter's voice became a voiceover again as the screen presented a video clip of a car driving down a desolate highway road that was lined by cornstalks. "That message, delivered by Sam Lane two weeks after Coachella did nothing to satisfy the public's need for all things Lois Lane. Instead, attention shifted to the unassuming town of Smallville, Kansas, and to the discovery of the identity of the young man who crashed a live televised concert, and broke the story of the year."

The camera stopped following the car down the highway to focus on a billboard sign that welcomed new visitors to the town of Smallville, Kansas, the creamed corn capital of the word; population forty-five thousand and one. "Smallville is a close-knit community, which for the most part remained quiet and protective over Clark Kent, the town's newly famous resident, amidst an invasion of journalists and photographers from all over the world…"

A montage of different video clips showed townsfolk waving away cameras and refusing to comment.

"…Although eventually, it did come out that during the time Lola Dakota was supposed to be in a Hawaiian rehab facility, she was in fact, here, in Smallville, Kansas, staying on the Kent's Farm."

A clip showed a teenage boy leaning against the outside fence near a mailbox that read 'Kent'. "Yeah, she was here," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the farm house in the distance. "You never even saw her!" another voice called out, causing the camera to pan to show another teenage boy standing nearby. "Yeah, well my brother did," the first boy offered, sheepishly shrugging at the camera. The camera's focus then changed as it zoomed in to reveal a man walking from the red barn carrying two silver pails. He was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots, but his face couldn't clearly be seen because the bill of his cap was pulled low.

"Not much information has been found on young Mr. Kent," the reporter voiced over a yearbook photo of the aforementioned person of interest. "And without his comment or those of his neighbors, we may never know what led up to the events that took place at Coachella. What we do know is that Lois Lane's stay in Kansas instead of Hawaii is yet one more example of the misdirection and subterfuge that kept us all guessing—and nowhere close—to the real identity of Lola Dakota."

The screen returned to the reporter in the studio. "And even with that unsatisfying end, we still can't seem to get enough of this story. While Lois Lane's Coachella performance only consisted merely of one unknown and unlabeled song, online downloads and viewings have reached the millions and billions respectively. There is no precedent for an unofficially recorded song to top the Billboard Charts for three weeks in a row, but this one has."

The reporter stood from his seat and began walking toward the end of the desk, and while he did so, the camera angle changed to show his full body. "The success of 'Two is Better Than One', the song debuted by Lois Lane at what could have certainly been the death of career, reveals the significance of her talent—a talent that, I for one, think has been largely untapped. I may not be a maven in the music business like Bobby Big Mouth, but I'd like to go on record in saying that, like her mother before her, Lois Lane is a master artist in our midst. Whatever her name, however she looks… I hope she comes back."

The camera zoomed in to position the reporter on the left side of the screen while scrolling credits on the right. "This is Jonathan Jonnz for LNN Newsline Reports. Good evening."

~\s/~

Clark clicked off the television with the remote. He'd been watching that tape almost daily since it had aired two months ago. The paparazzi attention in Smallville had since died out, but he still made it a point not to leave the farm. If he had been isolated before, he was even moreso now. The citizens of his small town may have put up a protective force against outsiders but that didn't mean they were happy with him.

Everyone wanted to know why he'd done it, where she was, and what was to happen next… and he had none of those answers.

Why had he done it? The only answer he could come up with was unsatisfactory: he hadn't meant to. He'd gotten caught up in the moment and in his anger… After he'd been frog-marched off the stage (he'd met Lois's 'Perry' and found that he was nothing like the Teddy Bear she had described), he'd been held in a room guarded by security until the concert had ended. Threatening him with criminal trespassing charges, they had asked him the same questions. Why had he done it? His answers had been unsatisfactory then as well.

Eventually they had let him go—at Lois's request, he later learned—but by the time he'd been released, everyone was gone.

He'd been prepared for Chloe to not return his phone calls. He didn't have a number for Lois, but he knew she wouldn't have returned his calls either. What he hadn't been prepared for was the silent treatment he got from his mother once he got back home.

His mom had been sitting on the couch—in the very spot he was sitting at that moment—watching the repeated news reports when he'd walked through the door at two o'clock in the morning. She'd turned off the television, given him a look, and then gone upstairs to bed. The fact that she refused to cook for him might have been punishment enough, but the disappointment in her eyes every time she managed to look at him caused more pain than any physical punishment ever could.

When the paparazzi descended, camping on the road just outside their property line, it had felt like everything in his life had been taken from him. The farm, his place of sanctuary and solace, had been ripped apart by telephoto lenses and shotgun microphones. Ironically—or maybe not so much—the day that he'd been feeling the most pressure from having to put on the show of normality for the cameras was also the day that his mother had instigated a form of a truce. She was still upset with him, that much was clear, but at least—in opposition to the irrational fear of every child that has done something *really* wrong—she still loved him.

She had entered his room with a slice of pie and a glass of milk. Relieving in finally having her voluntarily in his presence, he'd almost cried. "Mom, I don't know why I did it," he'd offered, pleadingly.

She'd then reached out to cup his chin sadly and said, "Oh, Honey… Yes, you do."

~\s/~

Martha Kent walked into the den to see her son sitting on the couch, holding the television remote, and staring at a blank screen. Shaking her head, she crossed the room and perched gingerly on the coffee table in front of him, taking the remote away and setting it beside her. He'd been watching that tape again and there was only so much self-flagellation a mother could allow. Three months had to be a limit.

"Clark."

He blinked, pulling from his thoughts, and focused on her. "Oh, right, the horses… I was just about to hea…"

"That's not what I wanted to talk about," she interrupted. He sighed and she started to think that maybe she should have confronted him about this earlier. She had wanted him to understand it for himself… but he could be so *thick-headed* sometimes. "Clark, why did you do it?"

"I told you, Mom. I know you don't believe me, but I really don't know…"

"Clark…" she interrupted again.

"I didn't want her to leave!"

"And?" Martha knew that sometimes you got more with less.

"And…" He shook his head in exasperation. "I don't... I made a mistake. Isn't that what you want to hear? Isn't that what everyone wants to hear?"

"Is that all?"

He stood from the couch and began pacing in front of the fireplace. Martha moved to the spot on the couch he had just vacated so she could comfortably watch him.

"I messed everything up, Mom. I know that, okay?" He put a hand on the back of his neck. "I mean look at the farm…"

They had to cut back on some of their production without Clark being able to freely do the number of chores he was accustomed to. They had hired some extra help, outsourcing some of the work on the furthest fields to local crews, but even that had put them in more debt than Martha preferred to carry.

"It just got out of control," he confessed. "I wanted… I wanted…"

"Maybe that's the problem," Martha contended, stepping in before he could get too far in his deliberation. "'You wanted. You wanted,'" she repeated. "Maybe it's not about what *you* want."

She felt a little bad about the betrayed look he flashed her, but knew she had to go on. "What about what Lois wanted? Did you ask?"

When he opened his mouth to speak, she shook her head curtly. "Did you *listen*?" His mouth closed and she went on, "Did you stop to understand where *she* was coming from?" She tilted her head, taking on an analyzing pose. "Clark, you have an irrational need to control things—selfishly. I hate to say it, but I think your father and I helped to make you feel that way, with the way we kept you sheltered and… hidden."

"No, you guys were protecting me," he protested, moving to the couch to sit next to her.

Martha felt a small smile tug at her lips. He was a sweet boy, really… if not a little naive. "We didn't mean for it to make you this…" She waved a hand towards him, trying to think of another word than the one that was at the tip of her tongue. In the end, she said it anyway, "…afraid."

The word had the effect she'd been worried about. He tensed and frowned, obviously growing defensive. It was an old argument that had never been settled. "Mom…"

"Yes, Sweetie, afraid. Scared, terrified, and everything that goes with it," Martha pressed. "Life is beautiful, Clark. It's precious, dynamic, vulnerable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable." She gazed at his face, wondering if he comprehended that 'life' wasn't the only thing she was describing.

She felt hopeful when a glimmer of *something* made him tilt his head. "You can't take everything by force," she continued. "The meek inherit where the violent misstep." She waited silently while he processed.

Finally, Clark raised his head to look her in the eyes. "So what do I do now?" he asked quietly. "I took a wrecking ball to a tea party."

"You grow up," Martha responded bluntly. "You accept that there are some things you can't do… and for a man that can do many amazing things, I know that has to be hard, but that's what makes it *that* much more important."

Her son was a fixer. In the stable world she and Jonathan had created for him on the farm, Clark could fix the things he broke. If the fence was down, he could rebuild it. If the roof leaked, he could patch it. Jonathan's death had been one taste of reality that Clark had experienced and it had caused him to back pedal like a professional cyclist. In her own grief, she had allowed it—for a time needed to cling to him as much as he clung to her—but now it was incapacitating him. Shunting his growth…

She stood up and walked toward the old fashioned roll-top desk in the corner of the room. "There are some things you can't fix," she said, lifting the front accordion cover back.

"You mean about Lois?" he asked. "You think I shouldn't even try?"

Martha paused to glance over her shoulder at him. "You can't glue tea cups back together," she said, alluding to his earlier metaphor. "I think… that when you can't go back, you should go forward." She turned back to the desk and retrieved a red folder.

When she turned to walk back toward the couch, he was frowning and staring down at his hands. She contemplated saying more but knew that she could only push him so far… he had to get up and walk at some point on his own.

"How do I do that?" he asked, almost as if he had heard her thoughts.

"Maybe you should take a page out of Lois's book," she said, handing him the folder but not sitting back down.

"Page?" he questioned, not opening the folder yet. "What do you mean?"

"You know… when she came here," Martha answered. At his confused look, she continued, "Try being someone else… maybe someone more like yourself."

He frowned, still not comprehending, but Martha was okay with that. Some things were too poignant to make sense right away. She watched as he opened the folder. "Mom…? Is this…?"

She nodded. "I activated your deferred admission to Kansas A&M."

He looked up at her. "But I didn't… I'm not…"

"Ready?" she supplied. "I think you are. Besides, you can't stay here. I don't want you to."

"But, I…" He took a closer look at the stack of papers. "Three weeks? Classes begin in three weeks?"

Martha nodded grimly. "You should go pack." She started walking toward the kitchen slowly, waiting for the next revelation to occur.

"Mom!"

There it was, she thought, smirking to herself and turning back to face him with an innocent expression.

He held up a paper that showed his class schedule. "These are for the Journalism program…" he said. "How did you…"

She smiled. "I'm a mother, Clark." Then she winked as she turned once again to leave. "…And mothers know everything."

~\s/~

_tbc..._

_**A/N:** _The song referenced to in this part is a song by Boys Like Girls entitled, "_Two is Better Than One_."


	13. Chapter 13

-

[-13-]

-

Clark was sitting in the living area of the two room dorm suite watching a baseball game with his roommate Eddie when Paul, one of their other two suitemates, came through the main door.

"What up, Losers?"

Clark and Eddie exchanged a glance. In the world of roommates, Paul left a lot—quite a bit, in fact—to be desired. For the first time in his life, Clark was living (long-term) with someone other than his parents and it was proving to be one of the hardest things he had ever done. He shared a room with Eddie while Paul and L.T. (as Lou Tsai Ching preferred to be called) shared the room on the other side of the communal living space.

It was hard enough to have to keep himself in check when he was in public, but having to be on his toes twenty-four-seven was more difficult than when Lois was at the farm. Still… this had been part of his promise to experience new things. Upon starting classes at the college, he'd been allowed to test out of a number of the basic courses from outside the Communications and Journalism program. Transcript-wise, he was a junior—the year when most students declared their majors—but as he had only been in school for going on three months, he had some other "freshman" level requirements to fill. Such as spending a year in the dorms… which could have been worse if he weren't in the hall for upperclassmen.

All the same, he couldn't wait until the year was up and he could move out and into his own place.

"Mail call," Paul called, walking up behind the couch and dropping an envelope onto Eddie's lap from behind.

"So, remind me again, Clark… are you trying to become the next Robert Woodward or the next Harvey Levin?" Paul asked, repeating his earlier action of delivering mail to Clark, except with a tabloid magazine instead of an envelope.

Sighing, Clark looked down at the magazine in his lap and prepared himself for more of Paul's ribbing.

Another magazine landed on the first. "I mean, come on man. This obsession of yours is getting out of hand."

"Paul…" Eddie warned.

Paul was never one for subtlety though, and he continued speaking as he walked around the couch and flopped down onto the love seat while holding a long mail tube. "If you want to work for respectable newspaper—like you say you do—then you really need to stop reading that crap."

Paul was either really smart under all of his brash crassness, or really well connected. He was the editor-in-chief for the university's paper… which unfortunately also made him Clark's boss.

"I don't get it," Paul continued, popping open the tube and sliding a rolled up poster out of the end. As he began unrolling the poster, his face contorted in a mixture of horror and amusement. "Dude, what the hell?"

Clark frowned at his roommates actions. "What is it?"

Paul snickered and turned the poster around. "You tell me. You ordered it."

It was a poster of Lola Dakota—a blown up shot from one of her Elle Magazine covers. For a cover photo, it was actually rather tasteful. She was posed sitting on the deck of a boat wearing a white linen outfit and smirking mysteriously at the camera. The contrast between the blue water, the white deck, her tanned skin, and the white and silver star design that covered the right side of her face painted an intriguing image. Clark liked it mostly because the way her hair danced in the wind made her look free… and happy.

"You opened his mail?" Eddie demanded angrily.

"Honest mistake," Paul replied, obviously lying. "But what is a grown ass man doing with a poster like this?" He turned it back around so he could see the image again. "…Although she is damn fine."

Bristling at the way Paul licked his lips while gazing at the poster, Clark jumped to his feet and crossed the small area between the couches. Careful not to rip the poster, he snatched it from his roommate and turned toward his room.

"What's your problem?" Paul asked, still laughing. "Just admit you're crushed out on her. I mean, it's pathetic but it shows you're human."

"Paul," Eddie warned again, "let it go."

Clark could hear Paul's response as he deposited the poster and mail tube on his bed. "Let what go? The fact that he buys all those tabloids to keep tabs on her? Yeah, L.T. figured that out a while ago. What makes him think he can find her when the whole world has been looking? He's acting like a damn stalker, or… Hold up…"

Clark was about to head back into the common area when he heard Paul's voice trail off. He wasn't a stalker… not really. It was just that, he needed to talk to her… this time to apologize. And even though his mother had advised otherwise, he didn't think he could honestly move forward without first making it right.

Closing his eyes he gritted his teeth and stepped into the doorway in time to see Paul pull out his phone.

"Let it go, Paul," Eddie said again, reaching for the phone.

Paul jumped out of his seat, keeping the phone away from Eddie's hand. "Holy frak!" Paul looked up from his phone to meet Clark's gaze from across the room. "Ho-ly frak! It was you." He laughed and started walking over to him, with Clark's mood souring with every advancing step. "You are the *man*!"

Eddie looked at Clark and shrugged apologetically as Paul reached him and punched him on the shoulder. Paul held up the phone to show Clark the mobile web browser page he'd just looked up. "This is big, man! Do you realize how big this is? And here I thought you were just some backwoods hick from nowheresville, but come to find out that you're the frakkin' man!"

Paul lifted his chin in a slimy information-getting nod. "So, who was a better lay? Lois or Lola?"

Before he could think about acting, Clark had Paul pinned against the wall that had just been at his back, with his forearm dangerously close to the other man's windpipe. Eddie was instantly behind him, trying to talk him down. Clark had never wanted to hurt someone so badly in his life.

For his part, Paul didn't appear worried. Just smug. "It was just a joke, Kent," he said, lifting his hands to the side in mock surrender. "Chill out."

Clark suddenly realized that he had answered the question Paul had been fishing for without meaning too. He released him and rubbed his chin in regret.

Laughing, Paul stepped away from Clark and headed toward the front door.

"Paul, wait…" Clark tried.

"The *man*," Paul repeated, grinning and ducking out the door.

Clark sighed heavily. "This isn't good is it?" he asked aloud, turning to his friend.

Eddie solemnly shook his head. "But, hey, it's just Paul. How much damage could he do?"

Clark dropped his head, knowing full well the damage Paul could do. There was no doubt that the story would be all over the Hall before dinner… For someone who had just been degrading tabloids, Paul was pretty talented in using their tactics. His own experience with the paparazzi told him that someone out there would want to hear whatever Paul had to say. His biggest fear was, that, given the popularity and global hunger for Lois's story, Paul's little tidbit would bring the feeding frenzy once again to his door.

"Eddie… I'd like to apologize in advance."

Eduardo just shrugged and returned to the couch and the baseball game. "We'll just ride it out."

"You say that now," Clark muttered. "He's right. I am pathetic."

His roommate didn't turn away from the game when he answered. "Most people are when they're in love."

Clark scoffed aloud. He wasn't in love… He hesitated at the thought but then shook it off. Thoughts like that had been what started the whole mess.

He was walking toward the couch when he heard his cell phone buzz against the desk in his room. Frowning, he conceded that Paul worked fast, but he didn't think he worked *that* fast. He entered the room and picked up the phone (a smart phone that hated to admit was actually quite useful despite its pretentiousness), seeing that he'd gotten a text from Chloe. A few months earlier, she had finally decided to answer one of his many apologetic calls, and they had since been joined in their quest for any information on Lois's whereabouts.

The text was a link to an online video site, so he clicked it and stared in wonder at the tiny screen. "Princess Lois Returns," he stammered, reading the title of the video. He didn't believe his eyes—the picture was so small and grainy and the lighting was horrendous—but his ears didn't lie. He quickly flicked the browser window closed and sat down at his desk, bringing his sleeping laptop back to life and keying in the website's address.

In full-screen size, the video was still grainy, shaky, and hard to see, but he knew without a doubt that it was her. Lois—*his* Lois—was on the stage at some type of club, sitting at a piano and singing a song he'd never heard. Just as he was marveling that she played the piano, the video abruptly cut off. Clark fumbled with the mouse in his haste to play the thirty second clip again—watching it five more times before clicking the button under the video to expand the video's description.

It had just been uploaded a few minutes prior to his logging on, and the video author, someone named deOBee86, was already prospering from his or her discovery. **Full details of the first ever LOIS Lane sighting in my interview with Jiminez Olsen on JMZ TONITE!** the description screamed.

Clark sat back in his chair in amazement. Then, after a complete minute of silent shock, he grabbed his mouse and started the video again.

~\s/~

A thousand miles away, Chloe Sullivan was fighting tears as she watched the too short video of her cousin.

As soon as she'd been told about the video, she had sent it on to Clark. It had taken a while for her to release her anger at him for what had happened at Coachella nearly eight months earlier, but in the end curiosity had won out. With Lois missing in action, Clark had been the only one that could fill her in on the details… not just of that night, but of the nights and days leading up to it.

She had finally learned about their hidden relationship—well, almost relationship—and even though she couldn't quite understand how everything had exploded so quickly and so destructively, she had allowed herself to extend a little forgiveness, if only because it made *her* feel better.

The video didn't show Lois or her surroundings clearly, but Chloe could see enough to be amused by the ironic image the combination of position and setting created. It was almost as if she were looking at Lois's mother… the piano… the small stage.

Apparently Lois was singing again, and she felt bittersweet about it. She was as happy as the other thousands of people who'd already left comments on the video, but it also killed her that she wasn't a part of it. Oh, she wasn't upset about her career—it was still on the rise, probably benefiting from the attention of people curious about her newly discovered connection to Lois Lane—her main heartache came from not having the close relationship she was accustomed to with her AWOL cousin.

Chloe smiled fondly at the screen, blindly reaching for her phone with it rang. She had been expecting Clark to call since sending the text.

"Amazing, right?" she gushed in greeting after pressing the 'call' button while still gazing at the screen of her computer. When the person on the other end of the call laughed, Chloe dropped her phone.

Scrambling, she picked it up in time to hear, "I hope you're talking about me."

Chloe found it hard to breathe. "Lois?"

"Hey, cuz."

"How… when… who…wha… I mean," Chloe stammered, surprised and shell shocked.

Lois laughed again. "Use your words, Chloe," she teased.

"…I just, I mean… Lois!"

"Yes, it's me."

"It's been almost a year!" Despite her relief at finally talking to her, Chloe couldn't help but yell. She was worried… she was angry… she was relieved…

"I know, I know. I'm sorry," Lois apologized. "I just needed…"

"You called your dad!" Chloe exclaimed, unable to stave off feelings of jealousy.

Lois groaned. "Actually, Tess did…"

"Tess?" Chloe repeated, hurt. "Tess is with you? I thought she quit."

"She did. I guess we both did in a way."

Chloe sighed.

"Chlo, I really am sorry. I didn't mean… it's just my *whole* world imploded that night and I didn't know what to do or who to trust."

"I didn't tell him where to find you!" Chloe contested. Then frowning, she remembered Clark saying he'd seen her glance offstage… but that was reaching, wasn't it?

"I know," Lois answered, unaware of Chloe's thoughts. "It's not your fault, but after I left the concert, you know… after it all sank in, I blamed everybody. Guilty by association. It wasn't rational."

They were both silent for a few minutes and Chloe sat basking in having her cousin—her sister and best friend—back. "So where are you now?"

Lois chuckled and Chloe realized that all wasn't quite right yet. Disheartened, she knew that Lois wasn't going to tell her where she was. "Just know that I'm good," came the simple response. "I'm doing okay."

Chloe sighed again.

"So, I bought a farm," Lois said, breaking into the awkward silence that had taken over.

"I'm sorry… You did what?" Chloe asked incredulously, smiling in spite of her other feelings. "A farm?"

"It was a spur of the moment thing. I guess I acquired a taste for organic milk."

Chloe blinked, still not totally comprehending what Lois had said. She narrowed her eyes as she began to consider that maybe Lois's stay with the Kents had more of an impact than she'd thought. "I… don't know what to say."

"It's nothing really."

"And… you're living there now?" Chloe asked, confused.

"No, no. It's just something… to have. So, listen," she said, changing directions, "the reason I called—I mean, one of the reasons—um, I was hoping to catch you before things got crazy."

"You mean with the music?" Chloe looked at her computer again. "What is with that anyway? Everyone is going postal over this video. I even saw it on MSLNC."

Lois chuckled. "Well, be careful because they are probably going to come after you again for what you know."

"But I don't *know* anything," Chloe said pointedly—it wasn't like she would ever betray her cousin's confidence if someone did ask her something about Lois's hidden life (she never had before)—but she felt the need to highlight how left out she was feeling at the moment.

"I tried not to sing, really I did," Lois started, not directly answering Chloe's understated dig, but giving her the story she really wanted anyway. "I was planning on disappearing and just writing, you know. But performing… it's like more than just singing… it's interaction, it's conversation… it's breathing."

Chloe knew exactly what she was talking about. To tell a story—which was essentially what Lois did with her songs—and have no one to tell it to, was like throwing away a heaven-sent gift. "Yeah."

"Anyway," Lois continued, "I'm starting back, but on my terms this time. Really low key. No planned tours or busses or stuff like that. If I write a song and I have the urge to sing it, I show up at a club and get on stage."

"Wow, that is a different way of doing things," Chloe said with a smile. "You realize that's how your mom started out, right?"

"Huh." Chloe could hear the amazement in Lois's voice. "I guess I never thought of it that way. The trouble is that with all the attention," she continued, "I can't keep it under wraps for long. There aren't supposed to be video cameras and stuff, but I guess someone got past Perry last night."

Lois laughed again and Chloe acknowledged the amusing thought, but couldn't find it in herself to join in on the laughter when she realized that yet another person was in on Lois's new life that wasn't her.

"Hey, so, I gotta go," Lois said. "But I wanted you to know that I'm fine."

"What about us?" Chloe asked. "Are *we* fine?"

It was momentarily quiet, then Lois asked, "Do you talk to him?"

Chloe immediately knew what she was asking and considered lying in case the answer rubbed her cousin wrong. "Yes," she said finally, deciding on the truth.

The other side of the line was quiet again. Then Lois cleared her throat. "We're good, Chloe. Or pretty damn close. Hey! That last single you dropped was unbelievable!"

Chloe finally was able to laugh freely. "Well, I'm no Lois Lane but I was pretty proud of it…"

"Hells bells, Chloe," Lois interrupted (Chloe could almost hear Perry saying it—evidence of who she'd been spending time with), "if you've learned anything from my debacle of a life, then you should know that the only person you should ever try to be is yourself."

Surprised, Chloe couldn't think of what to say—her cousin was sounding uncharacteristically sage. Her thoughts were interrupted when Lois came on again. "You hear me, Gidget?"

Chloe smiled at the nostalgia the childhood nickname brought on. "I hear you."

"Good girl. I love you."

She'd hung up the phone before Chloe had a chance to say it back.

~\s/~

_tbc..._


	14. Chapter 14

-

[-14-]

-

Setting an open box and an empty shoebox on his bed, Clark began packing up his desk. He had finally made it to the end of his first year of college. He was sure that by anyone's standards, it had been a crazy one. Leaving the farm and going to college had been phase one of 'launching' his life and getting some of the experiences that 'normal' people had.

His experience had been anything but.

Just as he had feared, Paul's discovery about Clark being *the* Clark Kent whose name was only know by the world when it was followed by 'the young man who de-masked Lola Dakota' had brought him back into the media's crosshairs. For a full two months, the renewed interest in his life had caused his 'star'—so to speak—to rise. The fact that Lois had resurfaced in the form of an internet video had only made the attention on him even stronger.

It all began with a fabricated article that got global attention. It all ended with Paul getting kicked out of school and Clark getting a new job at the Daily Planet. The in-between of those two bookends was whirlwind that even he, with his eidetic memory and first-hand experience with the extraordinary, had a hard time wrapping his head around.

He paused as he was pulling his CD collection off of the shelf over his desk. Ironically, the CD under his hand when he'd grabbed a random stack just happened to be Ella Lane's collection of classic covers. Smiling to himself, he set the stack down, sliding the silver disc from the case and putting it into his CD player. Eddie teased him good-naturedly about still using a full-sized stereo when the world had moved onto portable digital file players, and even though he did have an iPod, he tended to like to listen to his music thoroughly, and that meant reading lyrics and looking at pictures. Also, with the number of sample discs and first-runs that he got, he didn't want to put everything through a conversion process just to listen to it.

Pressing the Forward button until it reached his favorite song, Clark set the empty case down and returned to packing the others in the waiting shoebox.

The sound of clapping erupted from the speakers of the stereo, signaling that the music was from a live recording. "I'd like to, ah, dedicate this song to my baby girl," a woman's voice said, as a guitar arpeggio was played. "She's in bed somewhere, but I'm wishing her have sweet dreams... Always."

Another few guitar chords were played before the woman began singing in a soulful voice.

_"I see trees that are green/ Red roses too… I watch them bloom/ For me and you/ And I think to myself… What a wonderful world/ I hear… babies cry, I watch them grow/ And they'll learn much more… than I'll ever know/ And I think to myself… Ohhh what a wonderful world…"_

As he listened to the woman singing to her child about the beauty and promise of the world, he wondered just where in that world that child had gone.

He turned back to the desk and started pulling thumbtacks out of the world map on his wall. In the eight months since that first sighting, Lois had been seen at a number of different venues—all small clubs and never pre-announced—around the world. The first video author had been interviewed by Jiminez Olsen on his cable entertainment show.

According to the young man in question, he and his girlfriend had been enjoying live music at a small jab club in New York's SoHo district when the band had stopped for a break. Instead of the silence they'd been expecting, a woman they didn't recognize had taken the stage and started singing, backed up only by her guitar. A few murmurs, astonished looks, and stares had gone around the room until they'd finally realized exactly who was on the stage. Lois had sung two songs and then disappeared behind the stage. In the interview, the young man said that with Lois's sudden and brief appearance the additional security presence that night had suddenly made sense—it also explained why he had only been able to get a short recording before they'd threatened to confiscate his phone.

The rest of the video authors had a similar story. They were at a club, not thinking anything about the additional security in the building, when all of a sudden Lois would appear, sing two songs and then leave. No one knew where she'd turn up next, but that didn't stop people from trying to guess.

Countless online forums were dedicated to trying to unlock a pattern in her appearances. Large networks of people signed up to be sent text messages about the latest Lois sightings so that they could hurry to the venue if they were in the same city. Even with all of their preparation, no one could pin her down.

In the background to his thoughts, the musical strains from the current song ended and morphed into another. Following a brief intro with strains of acoustic guitar, Ella Lane started singing again. _"You with the sad eyes/ Don't be discouraged, though I realize/ It's hard to take courage/ In a world full of people, you can lose sight of it/ While in the darkness there inside you makes you feel so small/ But I see your true colors shining through…"_

Pulling out another thumbtack, Clark acknowledged that for a fact. He didn't see any pattern to Lois's movements. One day she'd been at the House of Blues in Vegas, and then a week later at Etoile in Paris. Clark had taken to following her, listening for those beeps on his phone that told him if he had a new message, and then making up weak excuses to drop whatever he was doing to rush to wherever she was reported to be. He never found her though; never caught up to her on the trail. Ironically, the chase for Lois Lane was showing him more of the world than he'd ever expected to see—his matchbook collection could vouch for that.

Clark took the map down and folded it neatly. He was glad to be moving. Even though he was still planning to live with Eddie next year—the realities of rent and utilities made it hard to be fully independent—he would have his own room and own space… and a bathroom that wasn't shared by fifteen other guys.

Hearing his cell phone beep, Clark pulled it from his hip (he'd never imagined that he would become a slave to the cellular life, yet here he was) and checked the text.

It was from a source. Something was going down at the Metro Club in Metropolis.

~\s/~

Tess Mercer walked out of her meeting with Toni Taylor feeling confident about the set that night. Some of these venues were hard to setup because club managers didn't want to agree to all of the terms. First, the turnaround time was horrendous. There was no precedent for an artist to just show up the day of their show and demand stage time. Second, the venue could do no promotion. If even the slightest hint that word had gotten out about the appearance, their team would just hit another club. Third, additional security had to be hired and put in place in a relatively short amount of time.

None of these things were the normal way to do business… but Lois Lane wasn't a normal musician.

First, Lois's talent and popularity—whether she liked it or not—were unprecedented. Anything Lola or Lois related was golden, and people flocked in her wake as if her guitar were a flute and her identity a Piper. Second, just being able to say that Lois Lane had played at their venue was enough promotion to keep managers happy. After a Lois sighting, the name of whatever venue she was at was tweeted, blogged, reported, and texted a million times over. Third, Tess didn't care that the extra security detail put a hardship on the management. She wasn't about to have a repeat occurrence of Coachella on her hands. Ever.

All of the venues wanted Lois so there were rarely any times when the threats were needed. Tess was a great poker player and her poker face could have won her Vegas-worthy street cred if she hadn't decided to use her skill in negotiations rather than casinos. Even though she played the 'you need us more than we need you' card when she laid out the standards of Lois's show rider, Lois had no intention of playing anywhere but where she sent Tess to secure.

No one else would be able to figure it out, but there was a method to the zigzagging and world crossing selection of clubs that Lois unexpectedly popped up in. They were all places once visited by her mother, yet they weren't in any preconceived order that Tess knew about. The locations didn't correspond with the route Ella Lane had taken, or with a series of albums or songs, but somehow—with Perry's help—Lois had a plan. This mini-tour, that wasn't really a tour, was about Lois paying tribute to her mother in a way that no one else would be able to sensationalize and redefine, and Tess vowed to do whatever she could to make sure Lois did what she came to do.

That night at Coachella had changed everything. Tess had stood in the eaves of the stage and watched as everything she had worked so long and hard to keep under wraps became public domain.

Tess had known that one day the gig would be up. It was her job to read the people she worked with as if they were open books. Lois's out of control behavior leading up to the Good Morning America fiasco had been signs that something would soon have to give. Her father's threat to 'have her fixed' had been something of a shock in that Tess had never expected it to work. But it had.

Lois had returned to them a different person after her time away. Not a completely different identity, Tess amended her thoughts with a small smile, but one that was more natural. One that looked comfortable in her skin for the first time since Tess had begun working with S.T.A.R. Records. 'Are you happy?' Tess had asked Lois, but she'd never gotten her answer. Then, less than an hour later, the choice to answer had been taken from her.

In a time span that felt like the snap of fingers, the world had changed. After sending Lois off on an airplane in the care of Perry White, Tess had prepared her statement of resignation, and even though she had turned it in and essentially cut her ties with the Lane establishment, Tess had felt like it was a job left incomplete. In her mind, Lois deserved the last word. Not the nightly news reports, not the tabloids… but Lois Lane herself.

So when Lois had called her out of the blue requesting that she help her find an artist for a song she'd written, Tess had refused.

She'd refused and told her that—like at Coachella—it was time for her to sing for herself.

Reaching the end of the back hallway that separated the Metro Club's offices from the main room, Tess froze as her worst nightmare manifested before her eyes. There, standing at the bar and speaking with the bartender was none other than Clark Kent.

Stepping back into the shadows so she could remain unnoticed, Tess watched as Clark shook hands with the bartender before crossing the room and sitting down at a booth near where she now stood. The club wasn't open, so Tess knew exactly what he was up to—and the way he was gazing around the room assessing everything only made it even more clear.

Narrowing her eyes, Tess stepped from the hallway—still unseen by him, as his back was to her—and stalked over to the booth. Without a word she sat down, taking away his element of surprise by using it herself.

He winced when he looked up and saw who had joined him. Good, she thought. He knew who she was and was scared.

"Uh… Ms Mercer," he stammered. "Hello."

Keeping her expression frozen, Tess merely blinked and leaned back against the cushioned seats, crossing her arms as moved.

Clark cleared his throat. "You're probably, ah, wondering why I'm here."

She wasn't. Tess believed that the reason for Clark Kent's existence was to make her life hell. She still didn't reply.

"I wanted to apologize," he offered awkwardly, seeming to be unnerved by her lack of response. "I know that what happened affected a lot of people… you included… and I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

Tess sharpened her glare and he dropped his gaze for a few moments.

"How is she?" he asked, venturing a glance at her again.

Tess rewarded him with a smirk. He had to know there was no way she was going to answer that.

Seeming to have read her thoughts, he nodded. "I wanted to… apologize to her too. I didn't mean for any of it to happen."

Tess scoffed, unable to let that go. "You don't seem to be suffering from 'any of it,'" she countered, sarcastically mimicking his words.

He nodded again, sheepish. "You saw the article…"

"'I Spent the Night With Lois Lane,'" Tess supplied for him. "*Everyone* saw the article." She arched an eyebrow with the emphasis on 'everyone' so he could understand just who she was talking about.

He sighed heavily. "That wasn't… I didn't…" He sighed again. "My roommate wrote that and put my name on it. I tried to fix it," he offered.

Tess knew the story. It was her *job* to know things, after all. An article had been printed in a university newspaper. Then, like wild fire, it had been picked up by syndicates across the world. By the time the smoke cleared, people still were more interested in the original article than the one paragraph retraction. Clark had pleaded his case through a reputable newspaper, but again… tucked away in the editorial section, it wasn't as publicly seen as the first one.

The first one was the one that everyone wanted to read because the mystery surrounding Coachella was too strong to ignore. 'Who was he? Who was he to her? How did it get that way to start?'

"And again, you don't look to worse for the wear," Tess retorted coldly. All her experience with Clark Kent had taught her was that he always left a mess.

The attention and popularity surrounding his name and circumstances had led to him getting a position with that same reputable newspaper. The Entertainment division gave him a bi-weekly column, banking on his sudden and prolonged rise to fame.

He lifted his hands almost pleadingly. "Do you really think that I *want* to be a music reporter?" he asked.

"But it's a way in, right?" Tess countered smartly. He would get no sympathy from her, and she wanted him to be sure to know that.

Clark lowered his hands. "It was a way to get them to leave me alone."

Tess had to give him that point. After Lois's resurface and the debacle that was that article, Clark had become the media's darling once again. Since he was away from the protection of his hometown, the cameras had been able to get a closer look. The paparazzi had followed him as if he was the American version of a British prince. Eventually, in order to get the media to move on, Clark had turned their tricks against them. He had started using his star power to get the popular stories they were missing out on because they were too busy lusting after him. In the end, his scoops had led to them wanting to beat him instead of shoot him.

He was smart and his strategy was to be admired, but that didn't mean she liked him. Above all else, he was a still a threat.

With that thought, Tess arched an eyebrow and uncrossed her arms so she could tap a message into her phone. If she could have her way, they would leave Metropolis within the next hour, but she knew Lois wouldn't leave the city without playing this club. Another option would be to play the next night instead, but Tess didn't trust the secret to keep over night—that's why they always arrived the day of the performance.

Finishing her text, Tess looked across the table. "Why are you here, Mr. Kent? Are you planning on going for round two? You going to tell the world that she's playing here so you blow her cover again?"

"No, I…"

"Every member of our security team will know what face to look for. You *will not* get in tonight." She leaned forward a little, relishing in her ability to intimidate when he unconsciously moved back. "Do us all a favor and don't even try, okay?"

"I just want to talk to her," Clark said meekly. "I need to explain…" He pulled a small notebook and a pen out of his jacket pocket and wrote something down. Tearing a small strip of paper off, he slid it across the table. "I don't plan on telling anyone about this… I came for me."

Tess took the paper and looked at the telephone number scrawled on it. This was more than just a job to Tess. The time crisscrossing the globe had changed their relationship so that Lois was now like a little sister. That fact, and their history with the man sitting on the other side of the table, made her extra protective.

"Can you tell her to call me?" Clark asked.

Tess folded the paper and set it into the unlit candle jar on the side of the table. Then taking the matchbox from the stack sitting near the holder, she lit one and set the paper on fire. "No."

Just then, another person arrived at their table. Tess smirked when, once again, Clark winced. "Perry, you remember Mr. Kent," she said, accepting Perry's hand as he helped her get up.

Perry frowned at Clark, who stumbled a bit in his haste to stand. Perry had been checking the venue for security issues when she sent him her text. Tess could tell that he was just as *dis*pleased to see Clark Kent as she was.

"Um, Mr. White," Clark offered in a weak greeting.

Smirking again, Tess began walking toward the door of the club, knowing that Perry and Clark would follow.

~\s/~

Clark watched the taxi leave with Tess Mercer inside. He didn't doubt that the reason Perry White was standing next to him was to make sure he didn't try to follow—which was exactly what he wanted to do.

"Mr. White," he tried again. "I'm not trying to cause trouble…"

"Son, you don't have to try." Perry then gestured for Clark to leave… in the direction opposite the one Tess had taken.

Clark took the hint, but as soon as he could, he ducked behind a building and took to the sky. Once again, his secret weapon was that anyone looking for him would fail to look *up*.

As he trailed the yellow taxi to the Luxor Hotel, Clark told himself that none of this would have been necessary had Tess just agreed to give Lois his number. With that plan failing, he was desperate. And desperate people…

He entered the lobby of the hotel a few minutes after Tess did, hoping to remain inconspicuous by moving away from the front desk. As he was contemplating how to get Lois's room number, he saw her walk out of an elevator car that had just arrived at the ground floor. Speaking on her phone, she didn't notice him, but he noticed everything about her.

"I'm just going to get something to eat," Lois was saying. "You can debrief me when I get back."

When she laughed in response to something she heard, Clark's heart hopped.

"Don't worry. I will. See you later."

She hung up the phone and Clark found himself trailing behind her as if his feet were thinking on their own. Realizing this, he slowed his pace, marveling at how Lois walked around as if she wasn't the most sought after person in the world.

She stepped outside, and Clark followed at a distance until she ducked into a nearby diner. He realized with a sudden incredulity that she was hiding in plain sight. No one expected to see Lois Lane walking down the street wearing jeans and a tee-shirt—so that's exactly what no one saw.

Borrowing Tess's maneuver from earlier, Clark entered the diner and joined her at her booth in the rear of the restaurant.

Her eyes widened in shock, but to her credit, she refrained from doing anything that would call attention or make a scene.

They remained unspeaking for a full five minutes before a server arrived at the table with Lois's water. "Can I you something to drink, sir?"

Still spellbound, Clark could only shake his head.

Apparently realizing something was up, the waitress cleared her throat. "Okay, well, I'll just give you a few minutes to look over your menus."

When she left, Clark found his voice. "Hi."

He couldn't read anything from Lois's expression as she started back at him. Finally, she reached for her straw and tapped it on the table to unwrap it. "Hey."

Having imagined this moment for so long, all of Clark's prepared statements seemed to melt in his brain. "I uh… I, hi," he repeated, smiling in what he knew had to be a goofy grin.

She rolled her eyes and waved for her server to come back over. Clark listened as she ordered chicken fingers—he didn't know why that sounded so adorable—and hot water with lemon and honey. When the woman taking the orders looked at him expectantly, he stammered something about a water or something. He was too giddy about the fact that Lois's ordering meant she wasn't going to get up and walk away.

He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. "I'm *so* sorry," he whispered.

She pulled her hand away and wrapped it around her glass. Clark realized that this was going to be harder than he'd thought—because he was so tongue-tied and she was so… serene. Somehow, he'd been expecting fireworks but the only electricity was coming from the tingling of his hand where he had touched her skin.

"You're not going to yell?" he asked.

"No," Lois answered, leaning down to sip through her straw. She flicked her glance around the room as an additional answer to his question. She wasn't going to draw unwanted attention. It was almost a challenge to see what he would do in return.

Given what he'd done last time they'd be together, he didn't blame her mistrust.

"I was surprised to see you out in the open like this," he said, nodding his head toward her.

She straightened and flicked her hair over her shoulders by moving her neck. "People see what they want to see," she replied, both echoing his earlier thoughts and adding a new level to her challenge. Her eyes had narrowed ever so slightly, and he knew that she was talking about him in particular.

"There are so many things I wanted to say," he started. "I… I'm sorry."

She sighed as if bored. "You said that already."

"I know, I just…"

"I forgive you," she interrupted, saying it as simply as if she'd asked him to pass the salt.

"What?" Clark asked in surprise. "Just like that?"

She paused, thinking about it. "No, not *just* like that. It took a while, but now it doesn't matter."

Clark frowned. "It doesn't?"

She shook her head. "The past is past."

"It is?" The whole conversation was going in a different direction than he could have planned for.

"I like to think that you did me a favor."

"I did?"

She chuckled and nodded, thanking the server when she set a chicken fingers and fries basket in front of her. When the woman was gone, Lois continued, "You gave an out. I took it. No harm done." She shifted the basket toward him. "Want some?"

Clark took a fry—not so much because he wanted it, but because he didn't want to not accept something she offered. "No harm done?" he questioned, more surprised than ever with her nonchalance. "But that article…" he started.

"It was true wasn't it?" she asked, pouring some honey into her mug of hot water and stirring. "We did 'spend the night' together."

"Lo…" Clark trailed off before saying her full name as he glanced around for any potential listeners. "It wasn't like *that*," he countered.

She merely shrugged and continued to eat.

"I don't understand," he stammered.

"There's nothing to understand. It doesn't matter because it doesn't hurt. I'm over it."

"Over it… over…"

"You," she supplied helpfully. She gave him a small smile and returned her attention to her food.

The moment she said it, Clark realized that up until that moment, he'd convinced himself of the same: he was over her. Just then, though, he wasn't so sure… Otherwise, why would her words have stung so badly? "Oh."

"I'm doing better than ever," Lois added brightly. "My dad's been great about everything. He just told me to take my time and do whatever I needed to do. I'm finally being true to myself," she said.

Clark nodded, unsure of what else to say.

"You should come tonight," she said out of the blue a few minutes later.

"Tonight?" Clark asked. He was still feeling stupefied and shell shocked.

"The Metro Club," Lois clarified quietly. "I'll be singing."

Clark blinked out of his stupor. "Actually, I was there earlier. I bumped into Ms. Mercer… and Mr. White." He smiled a little as Lois began chuckling. "Needless to say, I don't think they would let me within twenty feet of the building."

"Don't worry about it. I'll tell them to let you in." When he looked at her questioningly, she shrugged again. "There are no hard feelings here," she said. "In fact, there are no feelings here at all." She waved a hand between the two of them. "You'll just be another person in the crowd listening to me sing. Then we'll go our separate ways. Move on," she summarized.

"And that'll be it," Clark added hesitantly.

"And that'll be it," Lois repeated with finality.

Clark looked down at his hands as they lay clasped together on the table. "Listen, maybe that's not what…"

"So, you look good," she said before he could complete the thought. "Nice to see that the Media Machine didn't eat you up and go to your head."

He blinked at the sudden segue. "Uh, no… but there were times that I felt a little gnawed on, I guess. It can be pretty invasive."

"No kidding," Lois muttered, and for a minute, Clark thought he heard something different from the carefree persona she'd been giving him. But then she smiled and it was gone. "So, you're in college now?"

He smiled. "Did you Google me?"

"I didn't have to."

He didn't quite know if she meant that she had gotten the information from Chloe or if it was because his life had been plastered in the news, but he laughed anyway. "There was a point when it got a little crazy," he admitted. "But I'm managing."

"I'm glad." He saw the sincerity in her eyes as she said it. "I hope that you can find a way to be true to yourself too."

They got caught in a stare for a few minutes and Clark tried to read something—anything, really—in her eyes. "Do you think we can…"

Lois pulled her gaze from his and pulled out her purse—dropping an amount of money quite a bit over what had to be the total of the bill on the table and sliding toward the end of the bench. "I've really got to go," she said, and like that the moment was lost.

Clark frowned as she stood up. "Come tonight," she offered again. As she moved to go past him, she paused and put her hand on his shoulder. "We won't get a chance to speak afterwards so… this is good-bye."

She leaned down and pressed her lips softly against his cheek, causing Clark to inhale in surprise. As he tried to conjoin his thoughts with his words, he watched her walk out of the diner… and his life.

Lifting his fingers to press against his face where her lips had been, Clark realized that he hadn't been true to himself.

Because, the truth was… he loved her.

And unlike last time, when he was a scared man-child experiencing it for the first time, he knew it wasn't a crush. He knew it wasn't about control but about freedom. He knew that what he was feeling was the kind of love that changed your life and tilted your world.

And he knew that if she wanted him to let her go, then he had to love her enough to do it.

~\s/~

_A/N:_ The songs referenced in this section are entitled "What a Wonderful World," and "True Colors" as covered by Eva Cassidy.


	15. Chapter 15

-

[-15-]

-

"I need five minutes!" Tess heard through after she knocked on Toni Taylor's office door.

The club manager had allowed Lois to use the office as a private changing area away from the other musicians and performers that were already scheduled to play that night. The only thing is… Tess knew Lois didn't need to change her clothes after the performance. They were supposed to leave for the hotel directly after the second song. They needed to leave soon or the place would be surrounded by fans tipped off to Lois's presence by the people already inside the club. Tess knocked again.

"Five minutes, Tess!"

The catch in Lois's voice confirmed what Tess thought she had heard the first time. She pulled out her lockpick kit—something that had come in handy when dealing with Lola—and made quick work of the door.

"I knew we shouldn't have let him in," Tess said with a sigh as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. Lois was curled up on the black leather couch that was in the far corner of the large office.

"Can't you let someone have a breakdown in private?" Lois demanded with red eyes. "And that's not what this is about."

"The hell it isn't," Tess groused, walking over and sitting down on the couch next to her charge. She curled an arm around Lois's shoulders.

"It's not," Lois argued weakly, dropping her head onto Tess's shoulder and allowing herself to be comforted. "It's about closure."

"Closure," Tess repeated, hardly convinced.

When Lois had approached she and Perry earlier to tell them not to bar Clark from the venue, Tess had been against it. How Clark found Lois to even ask for permission to come, Tess could only guess, but she was ready to draw the line at having him actually follow through. Lois had been adamant, though, and when Tess had turned to Perry for backup, he—to her surprise—had acquiesced to Lois's request. When Lois was gone, he had merely responded to Tess's questioning look by saying, 'It's not over.' Tess still hadn't understood what that meant and Perry clarified by tapping the left side of his chest. 'It's not over until knows it in here.'

Tess looked down at the top of Lois's head where it lay against her shoulder and sighed. She was starting to think that something significant actually *had* happened between Lois and Clark, and Perry seemed to have known about it.

Narrowing her eyes, Tess wondered exactly how much of this story she really didn't know. Lois was acting heartbroken and that didn't compute with the Lois Lane that had been touring and singing since her brief hiatus. Tess was an expert on Lois Lane's personalities and yet she had still been fooled. Tightening her hold on her sobbing friend, Tess leaned back into the couch.

If Lois needed five minutes to once and for all purge Clark Kent of her system, then she would give them to her.

~\s/~

Lois entered the living room area of her hotel suite yet again thankful that Tess and Perry were with her. They were the best at their jobs, and even with the unexpected delay had found a way to get her away from the Metro Club undiscovered. She loved performing, she really did, but she wasn't ready to have to deal with the all the extra problems just yet. The media and the paparazzi tended to swallow artists whole, and she wanted to preserve her sanity. It was a lesson that her parents had wanted to keep her from learning the hard way.

Unfortunately, some things just didn't sink in otherwise.

Having just taken a bubble bath in the room's Jacuzzi, Lois had dressed in her favorite pajamas—baby blue flannel with dancing donuts on them—and her bunny slippers. It had been a good show—however brief—and she was ready to do a little song writing before falling asleep.

In fact, what she really was trying to do was divert her thoughts and emotions into an activity more productive than crying her eyes out. She'd been putting on a good show all day. A good show of growing up… a good show of moving on… a good show of being calm… all until Tess had blown her cover. She was tired of people blowing her cover.

She had physically and mentally prepared herself for Clark to be there tonight. She had chosen how she was going to act if their eyes met across the room. She had chosen how to balance the inflections of the song she was going to sing. She had even chosen how to bow and say good night. It was planned. Open and shut. Start and finish.

But then her traitorous heart had gone and chosen for itself how to feel.

So for five minutes—or maybe ten, depending on when you started your clock—Lois had let herself feel. Feel and mourn. She said good bye. Twice.

And now that part of her life, too was, done.

She was about to pull out her trusty notebook when she heard the sound of knocking. Knowing that the only people who could possibly be at her door unannounced were either Tess or Perry, she walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. Not seeing anyone there, she cracked it open wide enough to poke her head through just to be sure. Still, no one was there.

The knocking sound came again, and she realized that it was coming from behind her—from the balcony door.

Cursing her neglect to travel with a baseball bat, Lois scanned the room around her in search of something to use as a weapon, all while wondering if turning off the lights would fool whoever it was into believing that no one was home.

The knock sounded again and she blindly grabbed whatever was nearest to her hand.

"Lois…"

The muffled sound of her name drew her closer to the door, fatally intrigued by the fact that, not only had someone somehow gotten onto her balcony which was twenty-five stories up, but that they also knew who she was. The last part was even more of a mystery because they always used aliases when checking into hotels. Her current reservation was for Sadie Blodgett.

"Lois…"

The sound of the voice so close to her startled her into realizing that she had moved to the door. Hesitantly pulling at the curtain, she blinked in surprise when she got a glimpse of the face of Clark Kent. Pulling the door open, she stepped onto the balcony and looked around.

"How in the world did you get out here?" she asked, forgetting to be surprised that he'd found her. She looked left and right but the neighboring balconies seemed too far for him to have climbed them. The same was true when she looked down. Finally she looked up and assumed he must have gotten access from the room—which was crazy, but the only possible conclusion.

"Stalker much?" she asked, stepping backwards through the door but stopping just inside.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

"No!" she replied, vehemently but quietly. "I told you at the diner we were done. Why are you here?"

"I want to talk to you… Please."

"I don't want to talk to you, Clark," Lois said flatly. "I don't want to see you either."

With a sigh, he backed away from the door. "Fine."

Then, to her amazement, he swung a leg over the ledge of the concrete railing, followed it with the other leg, and then dropped out of sight.

With her heart in her throat, Lois leaped to the edge, gripping onto the inside of it while she leaned over trying to get a look at what she knew was going to be a grisly scene… but there was nothing.

"Clark?" She slid to the right, gazing down and trying to figure out if she was seeing things—by not seeing things.

"Careful." The voice coming from behind her made her jump and she might have gone over the edge herself had he not stabled her.

Angry, Lois brushed his hand off and stalked into the suite. "Jerk!" she yelled, momentarily forgetting about not wanting to be loud enough to draw attention. "Are you trying to scare me to death?"

Clark was still standing on the balcony, just outside of the threshold to the room. "I'm sorry. You said you didn't want to see me."

She narrowed her eyes. "Well come in if you're going to be suicidal about it." She dropped down onto the couch, still trembling from the shock of what had just happened.

Clark stepped into the room and slid the door shut. In the light, Lois finally saw him clearly. He was wearing the same black jeans and shirt that he had been wearing earlier when she'd seen him in the audience at the club, only now he also had something around his neck.

"What are you, a magician or something? Why do you have a blanket hanging on your back?" With her adrenaline pumping, she was having a hard time not sounding hostile toward him… but then again, she was *feeling* hostile toward him.

He looked sheepish for a moment, pulling the blue blanket from his shoulders. "I was testing the feel of something…" he explained lamely. Then he focused on her again. "Why are you holding a teddy bear?"

Lois looked down and saw that the 'weapon' she had grabbed was in fact a harmless bear. Lifting her chin, she pulled it to her chest and tried to look nonchalant. "For protection."

His grin made her even angrier, but now that her breathing had calmed, she refused to let him irk her again.

"Protection?" he asked, smirking. "Does your guard bear have a name?"

She arched an eyebrow in challenge. "Puppy."

"You have a bear named Puppy?" he asked with an amused frown.

"Yes, because one day I plan on having a puppy named Bear." She glared at him again. "What are grinning about?"

He waved a hand toward her. "It's just… the teddy bear, the bunny slippers… Not what I was expecting."

Forcing herself to not be amused by his amusement, Lois set the bear down next to her on the couch. "Shut up." She then crossed her arms. "What are you doing here?"

Clark tilted his head and she could tell he was up to something. "Which is it?" he asked. "Do you want me to shut up or tell you what I'm doing here?"

Yep, definitely up to something, she thought. He was trying to get a rise out of her… the thing was, she didn't know why. She sighed heavily and uncrossed her arms in preparation of standing up and showing him the door.

He must have read her mind because he stepped forward with a raised hand. "Wait, I just want to talk to you, okay?"

She didn't stand up but she remained at the edge of the couch ready to do so when needed. This was making her tired. They had already dealt with this… *she* had already dealt with this. Why was he back? "We said everything we needed to say," she said. "Including good-bye."

Clark nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "We did… but then I came to your show and you sang that song, and I got to thinking…"

Lois looked down at her lap and clasped her hands together. "It was just a song, Clark."

That seemed to make him pause for a second before he continued. "…I got to thinking that maybe everything is not as face value as I thought."

She shook her head, not understanding and not wanting too—and rose to her feet. "You need to go."

"Wait," he pleaded again. "I have three things I want to say and then I'll leave if you still want me to."

"Of course I want you to," Lois muttered.

"The first one is called Lois Lane…"

"You have cue cards?" she interrupted, seeing that he had pulled some little white cards from his back pocket and was reading from them.

He glanced up at her. "They're important," he said in explanation before looking down again. "The first is called Lois Lane, Lies, and Lyrics."

She scoffed and paced away from him, refusing once again to be amused. She knew that she shouldn't prolong this… whatever *this* was, but couldn't help but admit to herself that she wondered what he wanted to say.

"I was ready to let this go," Clark said to her back, still standing in his spot near the balcony door. "After the diner, when you said that you were over me… I realized that I wasn't."

Lois swallowed the surge that threatened to close her throat. She didn't care what he had been thinking. She was over it.

"I wasn't over you, but I hadn't even known that until I realized that what I thought I was feeling before wasn't really what I was feeling."

Lois turned around to face him again, confused by his words.

He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up in a way that reminded her of the times at the farm when he would pull off his hat after working… She pulled her mind back in as he spoke again. "I'm not saying this right."

Lois watched as he looked down at his cards again as if to clear his thoughts. "Um, Coachella…"

"You already apologized," Lois said. "And I told yo…" She trailed off as he lifted a hand again.

"At Coachella, I thought that I was in love with you. I wanted to find you and tell you that so you would come back to the farm with me… for me."

There were so many things wrong with that statement that Lois didn't know where to begin shooting holes in it. It was the argument that had been hovering over them the night she left. *She* was supposed to drop everything for *him*?

"I was wrong," he said. "I wasn't in love with you… because love is not about control."

She lifted her gaze to his. "No?"

Clark shook his head. "No."

Lois's pacing had left her near the door leading to the hotel's hallway… which in her mind was a sign. "Great," she said, controlling the sarcasm in her tone. "You came here to tell me that you didn't love me and ginsu'd my career for nothing. The end."

"I'm not done, Lois," Clark returned, holding his note cards aloft.

She sighed and leaned against the wall. The nearness of the door gave her some comfort in knowing she could end this at will.

"I didn't love you then…" he stated, "but I love you now."

Lois rolled her eyes. You don't love someone after not seeing them for over a year, she thought. And since it sounded good to her, she said it him. "You haven't seen me in over a year, and before then, you didn't even know who I really was."

Clark nodded emphatically. "Good point. I was going to bring that up, too. Thanks."

Lois bristled at his gratitude, annoyed that she appeared to be playing along with his idiotic plan—she didn't know what his plan was, but she was convinced of its idiocy anyway. Still, she took in a breath and refused to let her ire show.

"The Lois Lane that I met was not a complete person," Clark recounted, taking a step away from the door. "She was some kind of caricature of a person she thought she had to be. But then the real Lois started to reveal herself. She started to feel comfortable around hay and she understood the difference between water pumps and satin ones."

Lois didn't find that funny.

"But even then," he continued, "that wasn't the real Lois Lane. The real Lois Lane wasn't the caricature and she wasn't the singular version of herself that was just putting up with farm chores for a few weeks so that she could get back to dining with friends at The Fern…"

"The *Ivy*," Lois corrected.

Clark just smiled, and she realized that he was goading her. "The real Lois Lane wasn't either-or. She was this amazing combination of the two. She was the one who tried to Tom Sawyer her way out of manual labor… and the one who sang Sesame Street songs to chickens."

Lois tilted her head, surprised that he knew that and a little—a miniscule amount, really—interested in what else he was going to say. "That's who Lois Lane was?" she asked, wondering why everything he said was in the past tense.

"Yes."

"And now? Who is Lois Lane now?" To her, this was the clinching point of the whole argument. He didn't know the Lois Lane of now, thus he couldn't *love* her either.

"She's a liar."

That response caused Lois to pull back as if she'd been slapped. "Excuse me?"

Clark held up his note cards again. "My first point, remember? Lois Lane, liars, and lyrics. The Lois Lane part was about knowing who she was and who she wasn't. The second part is about knowing who you are…"

"A liar," Lois completed, putting her hands on her hips.

"Yes… No… um, hear me out." Lois noted that for the first time since he'd appeared on her balcony, he looked unsure. "This part is about both of us. I realized that we both were liars."

Lois closed her eyes and shook her head. He was making no sense and her mind—and ego, for some reason—were bruised.

"Neither of us were our true selves…" he added, "…until we were together."

Lois began massaging the bridge of her nose, keeping her eyes closed.

"Your true self—your passion and fire and… your vulnerability—drew out *my* true self. Or the self I have the potential to be. And then at the diner today, you were so cold and detached… it took me awhile but I realized that you weren't just being mature and moving on." He was quiet for a few seconds. "You were lying."

Lois popped her eyes open and blinked at how physically close he was to her at that moment, having crossed the room while she wasn't looking. She was suddenly taken back to the memory of how he'd cornered her in the barn the day she left. Narrowing her eyes, she stepped past him and went back to the couch.

He turned his body to face her now that their positions had changed. "Lying to yourself, maybe, but definitely lying to me," Clark said. "I didn't even realize it until after you sang tonight… Which brings me to my next part of point one… Lyrics."

"It was just a song," she mumbled, repeating her earlier words.

Clark cleared his throat and started to sing, "Remember all the things we wanted/ Now all our memories, they're haunted/ We were always meant to say to goodbye…"

Lois held up a hand to stop him. He was really *really* off-key. "Tonight was the first time I ever sang that song, how do you know the words?"

"I have a really good memory."

'Too bad you don't have a really good voice,' she wanted to say, but she didn't because bantering with him would have sent the wrong message. Instead she just arched an eyebrow… and remembered that she was mad at him.

"Are you going to explain your little disappearing act out there, Houdini?" she asked, pointing toward the balcony door.

"I'll get to that later," he said. "Stop trying to distract me. Lyrics. Is that why you wanted me to come tonight? Did you write that to me?" he asked.

Yes. "No," she answered.

"I think you're lying," Clark responded. She could see something unspoken glinting in his eyes. "But I'll play along. What was the song about?"

Lois cleared her throat. "I wrote it about two people who just weren't meant to be. Instead of finding ways to love each other they found ways to hurt…"

She trailed off and he raised his eyebrows. She gave in. "Okay, fine. Yes. It was a message to you—but just the chorus… and maybe the part about moving on at the end." She paused.

"…And the part about the perfect kiss?" he asked softly.

She sighed. "Yeah. All of it." When his expression morphed to feature a self-satisfied smirk, she bristled. "Why does that make you happy? The song was saying goodbye… good riddance. So far over you that I'm 'already gone.'"

His smile grew. "Because, you thought you loved me too."

'Love you enough to let you go,' Lois silently quoted from her song, automatically knowing what he was thinking of.

If clichés were true, Lois would have seen red. "Past tense," she bit out, wanting to erase that damn smile. "I didn't know who the real Clark Kent was." She felt like the tables were turning and caught her stride. She always felt better on the offensive side of the board. "The *real* Clark Kent was a hypocritical jerk who only put his own desires first," she said grimly.

She enjoyed that he flinched at that. Standing up from the couch, she pointed an accusing finger at him. "The real Clark Kent was a mama's boy who couldn't step foot off of his farm because he was too scared to see his own shadow!"

"I'm not on the farm anymore," he said quietly, smiling again.

That made her angrier. She stepped forward. "The *real* Clark Kent was a backwoods country bumpkin who bumbled onto the scene only long enough to make a complete fool out of himself and everyone who ever cared about him!"

"There she is," Clark said in a soft voice full of reverence and adoration. "…The Lois Lane that can't pretend to be indifferent about something that she cares about."

The wind went out of her sails. Exhausted and out of practice, she decided that she wanted off the rollercoaster ride of emotions he was purposely taking her on. "Clark…" she sighed, ready to put an end to it once and for all.

"I have another point," he inserted, seeming to read her yet again. "It's called, 'I Spent the Night With Lois Lane.'"

She blinked, momentarily surprised, and that gave him the distraction he'd been going for.

"I know you said that it didn't matter—that you forgave me and moved on, and I know that you know I didn't write that article…" He met her eyes with sincerity. "If I had written it, I want you to know what I would have said."

She frowned, blaming her sudden feelings of uncertainty on it having been an *incredibly* long day… which also explained why she didn't automatically step back when he moved closer.

"I spent the night with Lois Lane," he started. "If I had written it, I wouldn't have talked about an affair, or about underwear. I wouldn't have written about deceit or the things that I did… I would have written about the things that I love. Like, for example, the fact that no one recognized your heart. Or your smile when you're truly excited about something. Or how you hum when you're eating food that you really enjoy, how you never back down in a challenge even when it has to do with something you've never done before. I love how much your *true* self you give to the people you care about. Like Chloe. You gave her songs and promoted her career even when you were sabotaging your own… or like my mom."

Lois frowned. "Your mom?"

"Um-hmm. You invested in her business," he said simply.

"She… she told you?" Lois stammered, surprised.

Clark shook his head and laughed. "My mom is like a Knight of the Templar when it comes to secrets. She knows everything but never shows her hand. No, she didn't tell me, but when I went home for Spring Break this past April, there was something different about my room. I thought maybe mom had used a new fabric softener on the comforter or something. When you kissed me today, I figured out what it was. Your shampoo."

Lois didn't buy it. She doubted that even a bloodhound could match the smells of a muted fragrance across the span of months. He was fishing again, right? She had only been back to the farm once, and that was before her first show. She had a fondness for Martha Kent, and the older woman had been a great comfort and confidante. She still was on the occasions when they talked on the phone… Uncertain, she didn't say anything to confirm or deny.

"It made me wonder," Clark said, changing the direction of his movement and adding space between them. "I mean, tonight… when I finally put it together—I wondered, why would you stay in my room?"

His pacing reached the far wall and he turned around—Lois eyed him suspiciously the entire time.

"Maybe," he thought aloud, lifting one finger. "Maybe mom didn't have enough of a pre-warning before your visit to get the guest house ready… Or, maybe…" He met her gaze and lowered his voice an octave. "Maybe you missed me."

Lois sighed internally. Maybe she was tired of this conversation. Maybe… maybe it was time for some truth.

"So what if I did?" she demanded, taking a step to close the distance. "What if I had missed you? Forgiven you? Loved you?" she asked. "What difference does that make?"

Clark was grinning so brightly she thought she could use some sunglasses. "Every difference, Lois." He stepped forward and put his hands on her upper arms. "It makes every difference, don't you see?"

They dueled gazes.

"I live a crazy life," she said.

"I'll follow you anywhere you go. I already have."

She didn't understand what he meant by that. "Everything part of my life is scrutinized. I can't cross the street without a blogger in China critiquing my pace."

He shrugged. "You seem to have done a pretty good job going unnoticed. We'll beat them at their own game."

She blinked, forcing herself to stay on her toes and limber for this dance. "We weren't right for each other," she stated. "We didn't work."

Clark shook his head. "No. The people we used to be didn't work. The people we *are* right now… those two are right for each other."

He sounded convinced, she noted. "I don't…"

"*We're* right for each other," he insisted. "Can we try?"

Lois gazed up at him. "Try?" She asked it even though she knew what he was getting at. She was just trying to buy herself some time to think…

"Yeah, our last launch got cut short," he said. "And then, of course, I kinda messed up the landing."

She had to laugh at that. "I'll say." She had to buy herself some time to find a way to end this conversation before she did something stupid…

"So? What do you say to second chances?"

"I say…" Before she did something like…

Clark jumped in. "Lois, I know that I…"

Before he had a chance to say anything beyond that, she kissed him.

Her arms lifted to curl around his neck, and for a minute—or ten, depending on when you started your clock—she just felt. Lived. Loved. And he met her every step of the way.

This was the something stupid. She knew it was, and yet she jumped anyway. This was what she had been trying to convince herself that she could go without. She shouldn't want this—want *him*… Tess knew it, Perry knew it, the media knew it…

She shouldn't have let him in. She shouldn't have let him start talking. But…

Her thoughts trailed off as his arms moved from her hips to circle around her waist and pull her closer.

She shouldn't have enjoyed that, but she did. She deepened the kiss, finally giving in to the traitorous idea that *this* was the one she had wanted earlier that day in the diner. This was the kiss that said that maybe they could get past their past with time… that maybe they had grown up but not quite apart… that maybe…

But something else was dancing around with all the maybes. Some little tickle at the back of her brain... Well aside from the need to breathe, that is. Something he'd said… "Wait," she whispered, panting as she reluctantly pulled back. "You said three."

She bit her lip as she took in Clark's adorably flustered appearance. After all his bravado and confidence, she had him confused and bereft. There was something to be said for being the top banana, and that something rhymed with the word 'empowered'. "What?"

"Points. What's the third one?"

He blinked, still lost, and then his eyes cleared with comprehension. "Oh, right." He looked down to the floor where his cards had dropped and she knelt to pick the top one up.

"Master of disguise?" she questioned, reading the note next to the number three.

He flushed. "Yeah, see… I was wondering if you could help me with a costume."

~\s/~

**The End.**

_A/N:_ The song referenced in this section is entitled "Already Gone," by Kelly Clarkson.

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**And… The Epilogue.**

Knowing that she wasn't going to get back to sleep anytime soon, Lois pointed the remote toward the television and clicked it on. A news-type talking heads show was in progress.

"…biggest news of the day is the report that power-couple Lane-Kent are in France, taking a break from the humanitarian tour they've been on since they went public with their relationship and marriage last year. Sources say that family members of the duo were seen boarding airplanes last week, and speculation has it that the pitstop in Paris is actually a family reunion."

Lois chuckled at the irony as another of the panelists chimed in.

"I heard it had to do with the return of Ella Lane."

Lois glanced down at the sleeping child that was nestled against her chest. "Don't worry, baby girl, they'll find something new to talk about soon."

On the screen, the reporters started to fidget with their ear pieces as a breaking news graphic appeared on the screen. "Ladies and gentlemen, we just received word that Oceanic Air Flight 815 out of Sidney has reported landing gear failure on its descent into Los Angeles. The flight crew has informed the tower of its distress and is going to attempt to halt its descent in order to use up fuel. The video to your right is the scene at LAX where officials are… Wait… is that a bird?"

Another of the panelists cut in, "I think it might be another plane…"

"No… No… that's… That's a man in a cape!"

Lois kissed her daughter's fine hair and smiled. "See, Ella? I told you."

~\s/~

**Fade to Black.**


End file.
